

/ 



Class __w 'TTS _ 

Book 

J.l 

OFFICIAL DONATION. 
























. 




1 

* 

. 




















ISTHMIAN CANAL. 


STATEMENT ■ 


GEO. S. MORISON 

I 


BEFORE 


THE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
INTEROCEANIC CANALS, 

UNITED STATES SENATE, 


CONSISTING OF 


SENATORS MORGAN (CHAIRMAN), HANNA, MITCHELL, TURNER, 

AND FOSTER OF LOUISIANA. 


) ) O ) t * ) 4 .) O > B * » i 

> > •> K » * * • 1 * 

•• 5 0 )) )) ' > * > & >> 

*0*3 i O > * » © 3 ' ■> > ** 

-- 


* C * > • 


WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 

1 902 . 





/ 









0 V 


Qs 


\ 


V 








< « 

« V t 
* « 


( C ( «. 

c> «' f i 

< < f <■ 

* < c 

( c ( r 


e 

<•. 

<\ 

( .. 


<(•<:« < <(• 
4 < < * 

< < < l C * 

C i € « 

t < C f « • 




< v < 
C 

C f 
< 

I ( I 





* < 




maLl-oS 


ISTHMIAN CANAL. 


Washington, D. C., 
Wednesday, February 12, 1902. 
The subcommittee met at 10.30 a. m. 

Present: Senators Morgan (chairman) and Hanna. 

Also, Senators Platt, of New York, Hawley, Harris, Millard, and 
Kittredge, members of the committee. 

Mr. George S. Morison appeared and was duly sworn by the chair¬ 
man. 

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE S. MORISON. 


The Chairman. Mr. Morison, Senator Harris is our engineer mem¬ 
ber of our committee, who is somewhat familiar with that Peninsular 
country, having surveyed it when he was a young man, in connection 
with his father, who is an engineer, and so 1 will ask him to conduct 
the examination so far as you are concerned. 

Senator Harris. Mr. Morison, you are a member of the Isthmian 
Canal Commission ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. I do not remember whether you were the member 
of the Commission who made some special examinations as to the route 
down on the Isthmus of Darien or not. I think you were. 

Mr. Morison. I was. I went along the whole coast from what is 

commonly known as Panama to the mouth of the Atrato. 

* 

Senator Harris. The Isthmus of Darien proper is that portion lying 
below Panama, between that and the mainland? 

Mr. Morison. I have never been able to determine what the Isth¬ 
mus of Darien was. When I was a bov the whole isthmus was called 
Darien. In our classification we called the routes east of .Panama the 
Darien routes. 

JSenator Harris. I wanted to ask vou some questions in regard to 
those routes east of Panama, through the shortest portions of the 
isthmus and ending in Caledonia Bay, the Gulf of Panama, San Miguel 
Bay, etc., those all involving a tunnel. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; everything we could find there would involve 
a tunnel. The lines across from Caledonia Bay are the ones which 
have generally been called the Darien routes. The line across from 
San Bias has been known generally as the San Bias route. 

Senator Harris. But they^ are both on that route ? 

Mr. Morison. They are a considerable distance apart. This little 
bit of a map will perhaps show you the location. That little map 
which 1 produce shows in a condensed form where those routes are. 
You will notice that all of them terminate on the Gulf of Panama, and 
that practically they are all the same distance from the common point 
that has to be made to get around the Azuero Peninsula. 


Q 

O 



4 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


‘M 


Senator Harris. Of course all of those routes come under the 
concession which the Panama company has? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; they all come within the territory in which the 
Panama Canal Company has an exclusive right to build a canal. 

Senator Harris. And therefore all of those routes would require 
the same legal and diplomatic negotiations to be gone through with 
that are involved in the case of the Panama line proper ? 

Mr. Morison. I should sat r so. 

Senator Harris. I believe you mentioned three of those routes in 
the report; the Sassardi location, the Aglaseniqua location, and the 
Caledonia location. 

Mr. Morison. Those are three variants, you may sa}y of the Cale¬ 
donia route, or what was generally called the Darien route. They cross 
the summit of the range, which is very near the coast, at the heads of 
different valleys. They all come together at or before the connection 
with the Savana River, which is the Pacific outlet. 

Senator Harris. You also have a fourth one, the San Bias. 

Mr. Morison. That is the San Bias route. 

Senator Harris. Now, in all of these practically there are good 
harbors ? 


Mr. Morison. Yes; they are all good harbors. 

Senator Harris. And of course the distance is shorter between tide 
levels than by any other route? 

Mr. Morison. The distance on the San Bias route is shorter. The 
distance on the Darien route proper, that leading from Caledonia Bay, 
is quite as great as it is on the Panama route. 

Senator Harris. You estimate, I see, on the Sassardi location for 
40 miles of railroad. You give the distance from Caledonia Bay to 
the mouth of the Lara, varying from 32 miles by the Sassardi route 
to 36 by the Caledonia route. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. That does not take you to deep water. You 
have got to improve the Savana River and put in a tide lock at a con¬ 
siderable distance below that. That must be included in the distance 
between deep waters, and that makes it more than the Panama route. 

Senator Harris. By the San Bias route the distance from tide water 
to tide water is 21 miles. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; from tide water to tide water, but not from 
navigable water to navigable water. 

Senator Harris. That is what I meant in the other case. It does not 
mean from the six-fathom line, or anything of that kind. 

Mr. Morison. No, sir. 

Senator Harris. These have advantages in the way of being sea-level 
canals and having available harbors? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 


Senator Harris. But on account of the one vital piece of work, 
impracticable apparently, according to the ideas of the Commission— 
that is, the tunnel—they were not recommended ( 

Mr. Morison. That was so. We considered that the objection to a 
tunnel was so great that it outweighed all of those matters very much. 

Senator Harris. So that a route may have the advantage of short¬ 
ness, and yet there may be a vital piece of work which will render it 
unavailable ? 

Mr. Morison. That is true. 

Senator Harris. In regard to those tunnels, 1 think you estimate 
the cost of excavation in the tunnels at $5 per cubic yard? 


STATEMENT OE GEO. S. MORISON. 


5 


Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. Do you think it is possible that that can be done 
at a lower rate than $5 per cubic yard? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; I do. 

Senator Harris. It has been stated that it could be done for very 
much less. 

Mr. Morison. I think it is possible that it could be done for less. 
I think the chances are that it would cost more. You see, we do not 
know what it is, and there is nothing more unsafe than to guess at 
things that nobody has ever seen. In order to make anything like an 
accurate estimate of what it would cost to build a tunnel there that 
whole line should be bored. I have not any definite idea of what kind 
of rock would be found, and I do not think anybody else has. 

Senator Harris. I was going to ask you whether you had any infor¬ 
mation at all as to the geological character of the ridge to be tunneled. 

Mr. Morison. The presumption is that it is volcanic rock, that it is 
something like what is found everywhere else on the Isthmus, what is 
found, you mav say, on the Coast Range all the wav from Oregon to 
Panama. That is, it is largely basalt; but at the same time other rocks 
may be found there. It is a country of geological disturbances, and 
I do not think you can form any judgment that is worth anything as 
to what kind of l ock it is, or as to what it will cost to excavate it; or, 
in fact, whether you can excavate it as a tunnel, until the line has 
actually been bored. 

Senator Harris. You think that the probabilities are that it would 
be very much broken up and full of faults and a great deal of unstable 
material ? 

Mr. Morison. I do. 

Senator Harris. You do not think there is any human probability 
of its being a solid wall of granite? 

Mr. Morison. I should be very much surprised if it was, but I 
would not say that it is not. 

Senator Harris. I am speaking of probabilities. What indications 
did you observe there of the presence of granite to any considerable 
extent ? 

Mr. Morison. I did not go back to the ridge. I only went along 
the coast. I talked with the men that went back to the ridge, and I 
saw what there was on the coast. There was nothing I saw which 
indicated to me that there was granite there, and I do not think I saw 
any granite on the Isthmus, either at Nicaragua or Panama, or around 
there. 

Senator Harris. Even if along the line of a survey granite should be 
noted in the field books here and there, you would not consider that a 
reliable indication that there was a solid wall of granite? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir; and even if I knew that the entire isthmus 
was granite I should not feel that it proved that it was a solid mass of 
granite, for you find faults and cracks and all kinds of things in 
granite. 

Senator Harris. Even in the western mountains, where granite 
prevails everywhere, we find it broken up in every possible way. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. With other material. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. We considered what we thought could be 
done if that ridge was of a good solid rock in which excavation could 
be made, and on that basis we made our estimate. 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


6 


Senator Harris. And you regarded it as necessary to provide for 
lining the tunnel ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, by all means. I never should be willing, I 
think, to send canal traffic through a tunnel that was not lined, even if 
it was the best granite tunnel I ever saw. I may mention an instance 
in point. It is not the case of a granite tunnel, but of a limestone 
tunnel on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, which had what was 
virtually a perfect roof, a Hat roof of solid limestone, which in many 
respects is better than granite, because the hard limestone strata were 
all the right way. That roof stood for fifty years, and then began to 
fall to pieces. 

Senator Harris. Through atmospheric action and jarring, and so on ? 

Mr. Morison. From some cause or other. 

Senator Harris. All of these things are factors. 

Mr. Morison. There are a great many factors, and the tunnels in 
granite countries have generally required more or less lining. Then 
the dropping of a rock in a railroad tunnel is a very different thing 
from the dropping of a rock on a ship or under a ship. One of the 
hardest rocks through which we have done any tunneling is the rock 
of Bergen hill, back of Jersey City, where the Erie tunnel goes, and 
where the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western has a tunnel. There 
are several. The Susquehanna and Western has one. That is a solid 
trap rock, and the Erie tunnel has been in use about fifty years. Yet 
the other day traffic was interrupted there for hours and a train 
wrecked. 1 suppose Senator Platt knows that tunnel very well. 

Senator Harris. The Panama line was not regarded by the Com¬ 
mission in their first report as the one which they desired to 
recommend, and apparently—I should like to know if that is correct — 
the change in their opinion grew entirely out of the reduction in the 
price at which the property of the Panama Canal Company could be 
obtained. 

Mr. Morison. Well, I can speak only for myself in that respect. 
I never should have signed any report recommending the Nicaragua 
route in preference to the Panama route except on the ground that 1 
felt that the United States could not afford to be held up by a French 
organization. 

Senator Harris. The reduction in the price asked for to $40,000,000 
made it come within what you thought was a legitimate and proper 
price ? 

Mr. Morison. 1 think that is a perfectly proper price. I think 
our Government could have better afforded to pay twice that price 
than to have built the Nicaraguan Canal, if that had been the whole 
question; but the United States Government, as 1 look on it, has many 
other things to do than to build an interoceanic canal: and if it allows 
itself to be imposed upon through an unreasonable price for one piece 
of property, it may be for some others, and that feeling was what 
settled my decision. I felt that these French people had put them¬ 
selves in a position in which we could only treat them as you would 
treat an oriental trader—tell them that we could not have anything 
more to do with them if that was the way they talked. 

Senator Harris. In the final report, Mr. Morison, you mention a 
great many difficulties which are still to be removed. 

e slang 
a lot of 


Senator Hawley. The thing that sticks in my crop, as th 
phrase is, is that if we pay $40,000,000 for that we shall find 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


liens upon it and have 60 per cent to pay on the dividends, if there are 
any, and we shall have a perfect barnacle load of claims from the 
French people. 

Mr. Morison. I do not £ee how those could come at all. I do not 
see how there can be anything of that kind. 

Senator Hawley. I think we should have a new set of French spo¬ 
liation claims. 

Mr. Morison. I can not see how those can come. 

The Chairman. Can you see how they can be avoided? 

Mr. Morison. I do not see how they are going to arise. I think 
everything of that kind has been settled. It is more than ten years 
since the collapse of the old French company. 

Senator Hawley. It is a century since the collapse of the other 
French claims. 

Mr. Morison. I do not know the conditions of those other claims. I 
can not say anything about them. 

The Chairman. Have you finished your answer? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. I interrupted you for the purpose of ascertaining 
what you referred to when you said that there were other matters that 
the United States had to deal with that were of greater concern than 
even the digging of a canal, if I understood you. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. What other matters are those? 

Mr. Morison. I did not have any particular matters under consid¬ 
eration, but I do consider that our Government is going to do a great 
many other things, that we shall put ourselves in a position where we 
have got to make purchases from foreigners. I do not refer to canals 
at all. 

The Chairman. I know y r ou do not refer to canals, and that is the 
reason I asked you the question. I wanted to know what you did 
refer to. 

Mr. Morison. I do not refer to anything specific. A case came up 
recently which is of this order. That is the purchase of the Danish 
Islands. I do not know what may come. 

The Chairman. You have mentioned some considerations that influ¬ 
enced your judgment in coming to a conclusion in this matter. 

Mr. Morison. I feel that it is important that the United States 
Government should keep itself in a position in which it is understood 
that it is not giving what people ask unless it considers it reasonable. 

The Chairman. Have you in your studies of this question contem¬ 
plated or considered the question as to which of these Governments, 
Nicaragua and Costa Rica on the one side and Colombia on the other, 
will grant us exclusive canal privileges at the lowest cost? 

Mr. Morison. 1 do not know anything about it directly. My 
impression is that you can do quite as well with Colombia as you can 
with the other Governments. 

The Chairman. I want to know if you have considered this proposi¬ 
tion. I on seem to have a poor opinion of everybody down there. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. The French, and also the Spanish, if 1 am right 
about it? 

Mr. Morison. 1 think that things have been rather badly handled 
down there in a great many ways. 


8 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


The Chairman. Have you, in your reflections about this matter, 
trying to reach a conclusion that was valuable and of importance to 
your country and your Government, considered the proposition of a 
combination between Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Colombia to fix a 
price for exclusive privileges upon that isthmus, and to divide the 
swag, if you please to call it that, between them ? 

Mr. Morison. No; I have not. 

The Chairman. You have not thought about that? 

Mr. Morison. I have not. 

The Chairman. You see now, do you not, that it could be very 
easily done? 

Mr. Morison. I do not believe it could be very easily done, under 
the present political conditions down there. It is a thing that might 
be done. 

The Chairman. It is only the political conditions that are in the 


way i 

Mr. Morison. I do not see anything else. 

The Chairman. The financial difficulty could be very easily removed 
by paying $40,000,000 or $50,000,000 to the two Governments and 
letting them divide it, could it not? 

Mr. Morison. I do not know that I am prepared to say how you 
would handle those Governments. I think I would rather leave that 
to you, gentlemen. 

The Chairman. So that your opinions, I suppose, as between the 
two routes, have been based very largely upon what you supposed 
we could do in acquiring exclusive privileges for canal concessions in 
either country ? 

Mr. Morison. That is a very important factor. I am an engineer 
myself, and I have looked at this subject from an engineering point of 
view. 


The Chairman. That is what I supposed. 

Mr. Morison. So far as political rights are concerned, I have con¬ 
sidered, assuming the Maritime Canal concessions to be absolutely 
void, and all rights to have disappeared, that the ground was clear for 
treaties on the Nicaragua route. 

Senator Hanna. Well, is it clear? 

Mr. Morison. It is on that {assumption; not on any other. 

The Chairman. Now, I will not interrupt Senator Harris’s examina¬ 
tion any further. 

Mr. Morison. I have considered that the situation in Colombia was 
complicated by the circumstances of those prior concessions; that 
those prior concessions were such that the United States Government 
could not do anything under them. They are not concessions under 
which this Government could afford to build; but they were a cloud 
on the title. At this act of their holders proposing to transfer every¬ 
thing to the United States Government removes that cloud. It gives us 
an opportunity of getting the desired rights from Colombia. Now it 
simply leaves the field as clear at Panama as the assumption just 
made leaves it at Nicaragua. It does no more. The ability of the 
United States to build a canal in either place must be determined by 
subsequent treaties; and my judgment is not worth much as to 
which country you can make better treaties with. 

The Chairman. There is one question which has not been at all 
mooted here that I want to ask you about. The State of Panama, 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


9 


under the \\ yse concession and under the extension, has a specific 
right to an annual payment of money by this canal company, and also by 
the railroad company to that State. Now, in order to get rid of what 
we call the cloud on the title, is it not necessary also to deal with the 
State of Panama aside from the Republic of Colombia ? 

Mr. Morison. I am not sufficiently familiar with the constitution 
of Colombia to say. Colombia was formerly supposed to be a federal 
republic. Its name was the United States of Colombia. It was in 
that condition when those specific rights of Panama were created. 
Subsequently they changed the relations of the States and changed the 
title of their country, which is not now the United States of Colombia, 
but the Republic of Colombia. It is my impression, though I do not 
know, that the settlement with the State of Panama should be made 
through the Government of Colombia. The State of Panama is 
entitled under the railroad concessions to one-tenth of the annual pay¬ 
ment, $25,000 out of $250,000. 

The Chairman. Have you, in coming to that conclusion, taken into 
consideration the guarantee which we make in the treaty of 1816 of 
the sovereignty of the Colombian Government over that isthmus? 

Mr. Morison. No; I have not considered that particularly in 
making that answer. 

The Chairman. We will refer to that later. 

Senator Hanna. The chairman asked you a question there, if I 
remember it correctly, as to whether in coming to your decision as to 
the preference of these routes, you had been governed by the condi¬ 
tions of the concessions ? I ask the stenographer to read the chairman’s 
former question. 

The stenographer read as follows: 

4 4 The Chairman. So that your opinions, I suppose, as between the two 
routes, have been based very largely upon what you supposed we could 
do in the way of acquiring exclusive privileges for canal concessions?” 

Senator Hanna. What I wanted to ask you, as to the choice or 
practicability of routes for canal purposes, the getting of the conces¬ 
sions was a necessity in either case; and from an engineering stand¬ 
point, from the standpoint of the physical conditions, you were in 
favor of the Panama route, as I understand you? 

Mr. Morison. I am, and always have been so since I have seen the 
two routes. 

The Chairman. Now, Senator Harris, will you proceed. 

Senator Harris. Speaking of the reasonable price which the Panama 
people now ask, you regard the construction of a railroad, of course, as 
necessary to the construction of a canal. That has got to be done in 
either case? 

Mr. Morison. Practically so. 

Senator Harris. That railroad, of course, would not be so expensive 
a road as a permanent commercial road? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; it should be. You have got to have a very 
good railroad if you are going to conduct your work properly. 

Senator Harris. Well, the equipment is not of as expensive a 
character. 

Mr. Morison. You want the very best equipment you can get if 
you are to handle large quantities of material economically. 

Senator Harris. Certainly, you want an equipment of that character; 
but dump cars, fiat cars, and all the machinery of that kind are not 


10 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


so expensive as Pullman cars, or high-class passenger coaches and 
passenger engines. 

Mr. Morison. It is not as expensive as Pullman cars, it is not as 
expensive as high-class passenger cars; but the freight engines of 
to-day are the most expensive locomotives built, the powerful engines 
to haul heavy loads. 

The Chairman. For great distances 4 

Mr. Morison. Anywhere. 

Senator Harris. Anywhere. Well, then, assuming that to be the 
case, what would you think would be the necessary cost of a railroad 
adequate for the doing of the work required in the construction of the 
canal ? 

Mr. Morison. I think the estimate in the Commission’s report is 
not far from right—$75,000 a mile. 

Senator Harris. That being the case, do you think it is reasonable 
for us to pay $110,000 a mile for the Panama road? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir; all things considered, I do. The Panama 
Railroad holds something more than itself. It has something more 
than a railroad. The company have a good deal of other property, 
and they will earn a great deal of money from commercial business 
during the construction of the canal, whichever canal is built. They 
will not earn anything after the canal is completed. 

Senator Harris. Do you think that the amount they would earn in 
the construction of the canal and the doing of this work would more 
than pay off the indebtedness which now hangs over them ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; I do. 

Senator Harris. There is a considerable indebtedness aside from 
the stock which hangs over that road. 

Mr. Morison. I think the indebtedness is stated in detail in the 
supplemental report of the Commission. I think it is correct. 

Senator Harris. I suppose you did not consider the difficulties 
involved in the United States Government becoming a stockholder in 
this New York corporation, the Panama Railroad Company? 

Mr. Morison. I considered that there was a method of handling 
that without much difficulty. 

Senator Harris. You regard the vital piece of work on the Panama 
Canal, of course, to be the Bohio dam ? 

Mr. Morison. I think the vital piece of work is the Culebra cut. 

Senator Harris. Do you think that is more difficult? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; I do. 

Senator Harris. And that there are greater uncertainties involved 
in the Culebra cut? 

Mr. Morison. No; I do not know that there are any great uncer¬ 
tainties in either case, but it is a very great mass of work. 

Senator Harris. Do you think it would take longer to do it than the 
other? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. Did you say there were any uncertainties in either? 

Mr. Morison. I do not think there are any serious uncertainties in 
either. 

Senator Harris. Mr. Morison, here is an article which appears in 
the proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, in which 
you say, alluding to the Bohio dam: 

u It involves novel and untried features. Few engineers, even among 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


11 


those who feel that they could construct it, would be ready to say in 
advance how the work would be done. The difficulties, taken in con¬ 
nection with the climate and other surroundings, are enormous.” 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. That, to me at least, indicates that there were 
some uncertainties. “Novel and untried features” would indicate 
uncertainties. 

Mr. Morison. Well, that certainly does indicate something in the 
way of uncertainties, I suppose. If you come right to the facts, 1 do 
not consider that the solution of the dam given by the Commission 
was the wisest one. 

Senator Harris. Now, Mr. Morison, if you will kindly, in your 
own way, state what you think generally are the objections to the 
general plan of the Bohio dam we shall be glad to hear your statement. 

Mr. Morison. I think it is unnecessarily expensive; that is the prin¬ 
cipal thing. I think 1 see a method of solving the problem for very 
much less money and with no element of special difficulty. 

Senator Harris. That is, you mean by the substitution of the plan 
which you indicate in this article published in the proceedings of the 
American Society of Civil Engineers, January, 1902? 

Mr. Morison. I do. 

Senator Harris. Which is earth and stone? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. Practically ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. And sheet piling ? 

Mr. Morison. That is of no particular importance. I put it in 
because I could. I thought it would be about as well to leave it out. 

Senator Harris. You consider that really would not be of very 
much importance in preventing filtration ? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir; I do not think it would be of importance. 
I think it is of very little importance anyway. 

Senator Harris. That is a permeable material. 

Mr. Morison. There is a permeable material down in the bottom of 
the Chagres Valley. It is a question of how much you can afford to 
pay to cut off the seepage through that permeable material. 

The Chairman. What particular class of material is it that you call 
permeable ? 

Mr. Morison. Sand and fine gravel—material through which water 
will penetrate. It seemed to me that it was not worth while to pay a 
great deal, or to undertake very difficult work, for the purpose of 
cutting off that seepage. 

Senator Hanna. The water would have to penetrate through what 
depth of clay before it would reach the sand ? 

Mr. Morison. I do not feel sure it would have to penetrate any 
clay. I think very likely that the sand reaches the river at some point 
above; but it would have to run at least half a mile, and probably 2 
miles through the sand, to get out at the other end. 

Senator Harris. In your article you speak of the fact, demonstrat¬ 
ing the connection between the river and this permeable material, being 
shown by driving a pipe down and the water rising to the level of the 
river in the pipe? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. And that shows, of course, there is a connection? 


12 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


Mr. Morison. Yes. Whether it is a connection above or below we 
do not know. 

Senator Harris. Or at the side? 

Mr. Morison. It can not be at the side. We know that. It is a 
connection with the water in the river somewhere. 

Senator Harris. Of course we have here the plan of the dam as 
recommended by the Commission, involving the sinking of caissons, 
and in this drawing they seem to let the upper edge of the caisson 
rest upon the stone, and a considerable of it below. That, of course, 
must be an error? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir; that is correct. 

Senator Harris. Is that the way it is intended ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; but the space between that cassion and the stone 
would be tilled with concrete; that is, that the sand would be cleaned 
out and other material put in. 

Senator Harris. You would have to excavate until you reached the 
bed rock? 

Mr. Morison. Certainly. 

Senator Harris. The entire width? 

Mr. Morison. To carry out that plan we would. 

Senator Harris. And put in impermeable material, such as concrete ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. What is the limit of engineering experience in 
pneumatic work in this country—that is, the depth to which it has 
gone ? 


Mr. Morison. There may have been some recent work of which I 
do not know the depth. The greatest depth at which I have ever 
worked men was, I think, 108 feet. They were worked to a depth of 
115 feet at St. Louis. 

Senator Harris. It has been stated that 110 feet was the limit there. 

Mr. Morison. It was over 110 feet at St. Louis. I have been told 
that pressures have been used which were equivalent to a depth of 130 
feet, but that I am not positive about. This is from information and 
belief. 

Senator Harris. This has been on work for foundations for bridge 
piers and dams, and work of that character? 


Mr. Morison. Yes; and some of it in tunnel work. 

Senator Harris. And, of course, covered by the limits of one cais¬ 
son ? 


Mr. Morison. 1 do not understand your question. 

Senator Harris. What I mean is this: This seems to provide for 
caissons, I think, about 30 by 100 feet. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. That is about the size of the excavations in the 
cases you speak of ? 

Mr. Morison. I used a caisson at Memphis that, as I recall it, was 
60 by 90 feet. 

Senator Harris. That was for the bridge pier? * 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. There of course you had no problems with regard 
to any connection around it. You were simply sinking it down and 
getting a foundation for that area? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. Here of course the difficulty would be encountered 
in the connection of each caisson with the other ? 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


13 


Mr. Morison. Yes; there would be some difficulty. 

Senator Harris. So as to prevent water passing- between ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; trying to make it absolutely tight. 

Senator Harris. It would be desirable to make it absolutely tight, 
would it not ? 

Mr. Morison. That would depend upon what it cost. I do not 
think it is very important to close the flow of water through that 
stratum down there alone. The calculations that I have made make 
me feel that it is not worth the cost. 

Senator Harris. That is why in your plan you are trying to disre¬ 
gard some of the flow of water' 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. You concluded it would not be dangerous? 

Mr. Morison. During the last few years a great many experiments 
have been made to determine the rate of filtration through sands. It 
is a comparatively new subject. It has been investigated with special 
care in Massachusetts, where they have had a double question. They 
have had the question of water supply for the metropolitan district, 
and other points in the State, and they have had the question of dams; 
their experiments have been carefully conducted, and very careful 
results have been worked out from them. They have prepared a 
formula which shows probably quite as accurately as any hydraulic 
formulae do the rate at which water will filter through sands under 
various heads. 

In the new Wachusett reservoir, on the Nashua River, above Clinton, 
they have accepted that condition in planning one of their dikes, and 
are making no attempts to close an old geological channel which has 
sand in it away below the present surface of the ground. 1 have made 
various calculations on the amount of water that would pass through 
that permeable stratum below. I have shown my conclusions to the 
engineers who have done that work in Massachusetts. I have had the 
samples of sand taken from those borings analyzed by the man who 
made the analyses there for the metropolitan board of health, and 
the conclusion I have come to is, that there is no chance whatever that 
the filtration would exceed 40 cubic feet per second, and 1 should be 
very much surprised if it is over 10 cubic feet per second; I do not 
think you can afford to pay very much to get rid of that. 

Furthermore, there are various ways in which I believe that sand 
could be made water-tight, but I do not believe it would be necessary. 
Various things have been done in the way of grouting sands with 
cement and with clay. 

Senator Hanna. In that connection, you have made the dam feature 
a specialty in connection with the report of this Commission? 

Mr. Morison. I have studied it up a good deal. I dissented from 
the conclusion of the Commission that this dam was a piece of work 
of great difficulty. 

Senator Hawley. What conclusion? 

Mr. Morison. The conclusion that that dam was a work of great 
difficulty. It seemed to me that it was not. 

I did not consider it expedient to separate myself from the Commis¬ 
sion on account of a single detail; but if I had been compelled to make 
a minority report, as I was at one time, when 1 had prepared one, I 
should have referred particularly to that point. 

Senator Pritchard. How long have you been engaged in the business 
of engineering? 


14 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORTSON. 


Mr. Morison. Thirty-four years. 

Senator Pritchard. What experience have you had during that 
time outside of this particular undertaking? 

Mr. Morison. Well, I have had a considerable variety of experience. 
I have done a great deal of work on Western rivers, and I have done 
more or less railroad work. 

Senator Hanna. Have you been engaged in many operations con¬ 
nected with the sinking of caissons for foundations and for building 
dams and bridges? 

Mr. Morison. I have had a great deal to do with the sinking of 
caissons for foundations. I think I must have been chief engineer of 
more than 12 bridges in which that process has been used. I can 
count up now ten on the Missouri River alone. 

Senator Hanna. So that your experience in that sort of work has 
been about as extensive as that of anybody in the country? 

Mr. Morison. My experience in caisson work has been. 

The Chairman. What line of railroad on the Missouri River do you 
refer to? 

Mr. Morison. I built the bridge of the Northern Pacific at Bismarck, 
the Northwestern bridge at Sioux City, the Northwestern bridge at 
Blair Crossing, the Union Pacific bridge a4 Omaha, the Burlington 
bridge at Plattsmouth, the Burlington bridge at Nebraska City, the 
Burlington bridge at Rulo, the new bridge at Leavenworth. 1 over¬ 


hauled the bridge at Kansas Citv and I built the Burlington bridge at 

o I- o o 


Bellfontaine Bluffs. 

Senator Millard. You built nearly all of them ? 

The Chairman. You built the Memphis bridge? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. I built the Cairo bridge and 1 was consulting* 
engineer of the Merchants bridge at St. Louis. 

The Chairman. Are you the consulting engineer of these other 
companies you mentioned, now? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir. 

The Chairman. None of them? 

Mr. Morison. I have a sort of a nominal—a slight connection with 


the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, but it is not regular. The}; 
occasionally call me in. Then I built the bridge across the Snake 


River at Riparia, and across the Willamette at Portland, although I did 
not use the pneumatic process in that. I started to build a bridge 
across the Columbia River at Vancouver, and got one foundation down, 
when the panic came and stopped the work. 

Senator Harris. With regard to the Culebra Cut, what do you think 
are the difficulties involved there? 

1 he Chairman. Before you take up that, 1 wish you would ask Mr. 
Morison something about that temporary dam. 

Senator Harris. The Commission have made an estimate for a tem¬ 
porary dam, preparatory to building the one at Bohio. Did they con¬ 
sider it unnecessary, or was it included in the estimate? 

Mr. Morison. It is included as a lump sum. 

Senator Harris. Y on add a very considerable amount for that pur¬ 
pose ? 

VI r. Morison. V es; in the paper of mine which I see you have here, 
I wanted to go into a little more detail in the matter of a temporary 
dam, so that I might be sure that my estimate had an actual detailed 
basis, and the temporary dam which is described in that paper was 




STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


15 


designed for that purpose. I considered that the plan would very 
probably be materially modified before it was built. It may be pos¬ 
sible to build the dam without it; but I thought that the estimate 
should include it now. The Commission’s estimate, 1 think, contains a 
round sum of $500,000 for the temporary dam, and that amount was 
deducted from the estimate in the Commission’s report for the Com¬ 
mission's dam in the price given in my paper. 

Senator Hanna. In the construction of the dam, no matter what 
may have been the estimates and plans made originally, of course 
the engineers in charge of the construction might make changes and 
modifications, and would certainly take the precaution to prepare for 
any emergency or any conditions that might arise as the work was 
actually done. 

Mr. Morison. I should certainly think the engineers in charge of 
the work should have the right to make very material modifications. 

In this connection there is another feature about the Panama Canal. 
Our examinations and estimates indicate that that canal can be short¬ 
ened a mile and a quarter, and the expense lessened by so doing. 

The Chairman. At what point? 

Mr. Morison. By running directlv across from Bohio to Gatun 
instead of following the present valley of the Chagres—following the 
Panama Railroad and leaving the old valley of the Chagres as the line 
for the discharge of the water from the spillway. 

Senator Harris. The French road follows the valley of the Chagres? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. You mean the French canal? 

Senator Harris. Yes; the French canal. 

Mr. Morison. That is the proper route for a tide-level canal. The 
conditions of a sea-level canal are different; but if you are going to 
build a canal with locks and turn the water into another channel, the 
indications are that this other route will be the better one. 

But the Panama estimate was generally made on a rather liberal 
basis, and things of that kind were left out. 

Senator Harris. You materially changed the French plans by taking 
out the French summit level entirely? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; we did. 

Senator Harris. The French, I believe, had made borings in the 
Culebra Cut to the bottom of their summit level, to ascertain the 
quality of the material? 

Mr. Morison. They have made borings deeper than that. They had 
two plans, one with a summit level at elevation—I can give them only 
approximately—one with a summit level at elevation 125, and the other 
with a summit level at elevation 63 feet. They made their borings to 
the level of the bottom of the canal on tne plan with the lower summit 
level. 

Senator Harris. So that you think the quality of the material 
to be encountered in the Culebra Cut, in getting to the lower level 
required by the Commission plan, has been thoroughly uncovered and 
demonstrated. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; I believe it has. 

The Chairman. With regard to the borings for the foundation of 
the Bohio Dam, they were about 50 feet apart, generally, I believe. 

Mr. Morison. They were rather more than that. I think they 


were 
that shows 


about 200 feet apart. I could tell you exactly. There is a map 
shows it. We bored over a considerable reach of country. This 




16 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


plan shows the distance apart of the borings on the line of that par¬ 
ticular dam. They are about 200 feet apart here. 

Senator Harris. Borings 200 feet apart may leave very consider¬ 
able contingencies to be accounted for in a more careful examination. 

Mr. Morison. In that class of rock the}^ can. That is one reason 
why I felt gratified when I thought I had worked out a scheme which 
was independent of the result of such borings. 

Senator Harris. You did not consider the determination of the bed 
rock there as sufficiently demonstrated? 

Mr. Morison. 1 think there may be holes which are deeper. 1 do 
not think they would do any harm, though. 

Senator Harris. Well, those holes would probably be filled with 
this permeable material ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. The presumption is gravel and sand? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. Mr. Morison, you speak of geological valleys. Do 
you understand how those valleys happen to be; whether they are the 
result of the flow of water through depressions, or of earthquakes, or 
of other dislocations of the bed rock or the bed material? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir; I do not. Some of them may be formed in 
one way and some of them in another. 

The Chairman. As to this particular one, how is that formed? 

Mr. Morison. AY ell, I do not know. 

The Chairman. You do not know? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir; I doubt whether anybody does; but still 
there are other people who may. A geologist would know more 
than 1 do. 

The Chairman. I will ask you if you believe it might have been 
formed by water rushing down and carrying out the material ? 

Mr. Morison. Not unless the whole level of the Isthmus was very 
much higher than it is now. The valley is well below the level of the 
sea, and you could not have water rushing down it to do that unless the 
valley itself was above the sea. 

The Chairman. Even Niagara Falls has given way very materially 
in the course of fifty or a hundred years. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; but they are away above Lake Ontario. 

The Chairman. They have receded, nevertheless, and changed in 
their appearance. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; but they are above the water. This valley is 
below. 

Senator Harris. Mr. Morrison means that for erosion to take 
place there has got to be a fall. Of course, that is correct. 

Mr. Morison. What I mean by a geological valley is that a valley 
can be traced in the rock well below the present surface of the country; 
that that valley is rilled up with material which is not rock, some of 
which is water-tight and some of which is not; and quite a lot of stutf 
in the very lowest portion of it is permeable to water—is not water¬ 
tight. 


Senator Harris. I should like to have you state to the committee 
your opinion as to the comparative difficulty in the construction of 
this flight of locks; that is, the locks with a maximum lift of 45 feet, 
each being right together. That is what the Commission means when 
it speaks of a flight of locks. 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


17 


Mr. Morison. 4 es. \ ou pass from one lock directly into the other. 

Senator Harris. As regards any locks that you know of, now 
actually constructed, in their comparative height and difficulty of 
construction. 

Mr. Morison. Those locks are larger than any now in existence. I 
see nothing specially difficult about their construction. 

Senator Harris. Does not the fact that two locks are right together, 
that you go from one immediately into the other, make them some¬ 
what more difficult than if the} r were separated ? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir; I see no reason why it does. It is aper- 
fectiy common thing to build locks in flights. ’ The old locks at San It 
Ste. Marie were in a flight. 

Senator Hanna. And on the Welland Canal also. 

Senator Harris. I was thinking of the great height of the wall 
involved in this, and the depth of the gates. 

Mr. Morison. Well, it makes a big gate, but I see no serious 
objection to it. The upper gate of the upper lock is high enough to 
admit vessels when that lock is full. The lower gate of the upper lock 
is high enough to let vessels out when that lock is empty, and that is 
just the same that it would be if you let them out directly into the 
canal. The gates are no higher than they would be for single locks 
with the same lift. It simply makes a larger concentration of masonry 
in one place. 

Senator Harris. With the extraordinary height, that is, a total lift 
there of 90 feet, the walls, of course, have to be adequate to that. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. Does that present an} T more danger from earth¬ 
quake action than if they were lower? 

Mr. Morison. No; I do not think it does. It is possible to use locks 
of less lift. You can put in locks of only 28 feet lift, and put a third 
lock below. 

Senator Harris. That would make a greater number of locks. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; there is a very good place below to put another 
lock. I think there are arguments in favor of doing it, but that is one 
of the questions which I should expect to come up when the canal is 
actually built. It takes a little more time if you have the other lock, 
and it was considered better to use those locks. There is a lock of about 
the same lift, a single lock on the Nicaragua route. 

Senator Harris. Thirty-six feet and a half. 

Mr. Morison. I thought there was one, under extreme conditions, of 
about 41 feet. 

Senator Harris. In the Nicaragua plan the dam at Conchuda pre¬ 
sents no more difficulties, does it ? 

Mr. Morison. I think it is more difficult to build than any dam that 
has ever been built. Everything about it, every detail, is within limits 
that have been met. I do not think any dam has ever been built 
which is as difficult to construct as that Conchuda dam. 

Senator Harris. Except the dam at Bohio. Do you not think that 
would be more difficult to construct ? 

Mr. Morison. That has not been built. 

Senator Harris. I am speaking of its being in contemplation. 

Mr. Morison. With the plan which I should favor for the Bohio 
dam it would be extremely simple. I think that plan is more difficult 
than the Conchuda dam, but I think the Conchuda dam is more difficult 

-2 


G S M 



18 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


than any dam that has ever been built. The Bohio dam has not been 
built. 

Senator Harris. By “that plan ” do you mean the plan of the Com¬ 
mission? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. Dams have been built equally high as the one at 
Conchuda? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. And with foundations equally deep? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; but never where it was necessary to let the river 
run over the foundation while the dam was being built. In this case 
you have got to put a foundation down in a river that } t ou can not divert. 

The Chairman. That is the real difficulty at Conchuda. 

Mr. Morison. That and its magnitude. Generally dams with very 
deep foundations have been in positions where it was possible to lay 
bare the bottom of the river and put the whole dam in dry. 

The Chairman. Is that more difficult than it was to put a caisson 
down at the Memphis bridge? 

Mr. Morison. I do not think it would be any more difficult to put 
down a single caisson than the caisson at the Memphis bridge, barring 
the difference in the surrounding conditions. 

The Chairman. The Memphis bridge caisson was deeper in the 
river. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. And there was a stronger body of water to resist. 

Mr. Morison. That does not amount to anything after your work 
gets started. One of our foundations at Memphis, the deepest one, 
we put in without any trouble whatever of any kind. In the second 
foundation, before we began sinking the caisson, when we first landed 
it on the bottom, we were caught by a Hood, and for a day or two had 
a pretty tough time; but as soon as we got fairly started sinking all 
those difficulties were over. 

Senator Harris. What is vour idea of the general character of the 
work along the Nicaragua Canal? Does it present anywhere any 
very serious difficulties aside from the question of magnitude? 

Mr. Morison. I do not know that it does, except that I think that 
swampy country between Grey town and the San Juan River is going 
to be a very difficult country to work in. It is practically a continu¬ 
ous swamp. 

Senator Harris. That is, about 12 miles. 

Mr. Morison. Oh, it is about 10 miles, practically. 

Senator Harris. All of it. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. Hills and swamps together ? 

Mr. Morison. The line strikes hills, but until it gets up into the last 
few miles it is more in swamps than in hills. 

Senator Harris. The magnitude of the work there is not very great, 
but the difficulty, you think, is in the class of material to be handled. 

Mr. Morison. Well, I refer to working through that long swamp, 
with the conditions which attend it. It is a swamp throughout. There 
are no roads in it. You can not make any roads except by hauling in 
material to make them. There have never been any, and there is a good 
deal of timber in that swamp. How much of it is below the water I 
do not know. I do not think we have any idea; but there is, in my 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


19 


mind, a very uncertain element as to how much timber you will find 
to interfere with your dredges while working in that swamp. 

Senator Hanna. What is the bottom—ooze? 

Mr. Morison. All kinds of things; in some parts sand. A good 
deal of it is ooze—soft. It is perfectly natural that there should be a 
swamp in a country of such excessive rainfall. 

Senator Harris. But did the French have any special difficulty in 
that piece of swamp just back of Colon s 

Mr. Morison. I think not. But that \s a very different swamp from 
the one back of Grey town. 

Senator Harris. The swamp at Grey town is greater in extent. 

Senator Hanna. What is the difference? 

Mr. Morison. The swamp at Greytown is very much larger in area, 
and it has a much heavier growth of timber on it. The swamp back 
of Colon is more like a river bottom which is more or less overflowed. 

Senator Harris. Well, aside from it being timbered, I suppose 
there would be no very great difficulty in its character? 

Mr. Morison. I should think there was. Thej^ look entirely dif¬ 
ferent. 

Senator Harris. In the construction of the harbor at Greytown, as 
compared with the construction of the additional harbor which is 
required at Colon, the estimates seem to be in favor of Greytown. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. Do you think there is any great difficulty in obtain¬ 
ing sufficient depth of water at Greytown? 

Mr. Morison. That whole coast is made entirely of sand. You 
have simply got to dig out your sand and protect it and keep it dredged. 
At Colon there is coral rock, and the increased cost of the harbor at 
Colon is due very largely to the fact that our estimates were made on 
a canal 35 feet deep, instead of 30, as has hitherto been talked of. 
The French plan provided a canal a little less than 30 feet deep. That 
is about the normal depth of the present harbor at Colon. In order 
to adapt that harbor to 35 feet you have got to make a channel. That 
channel can be deferred until the canal is finished, if desirable, because 
there are not many ships that can not go through a harbor 30 feet deep. 

Senator Harris. But if you make a canal 35 feet deep you have 
got to make the entrance deep enough to enable ships to go up it. 

Mr. Morison. I say it could be deferred until the canal was opened. 
You can open the canal to most classes of service now before deepen¬ 
ing that. It should be done, sooner or later. 

Senator Harris. As a practical proposition, I should like to know 
whether you think that really there is a necessity for making the canal 
35 feet deep? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; I do. 

Senator Harris. You think it ought to be that deep? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, 1 do. I believe myself that the traffic through 
that canal will be done in the largest ships that are running anywhere 
in the world. 

Senator Hawley. Through the Nicaragua Canal? 

Mr. Morison. Through the canal, whichever it is. It will all be 
long-distance trade, and long-distance lines find their greatest profit 
in large ships. A large ship can be run, in proportion to her cargo 
capacity, more cheaply than a small one. The trouble is it takes too 
long to load and unload it. 


20 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


Senator Hanna. And then the item of fuel is a very important 
factor? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Hanna. To cany fuel enough to complete the voyage? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. There is another question about which I should 
like to have your opinion. That is as to the necessity of double- 
chambered locks. Do you think the traffic will be so great as to require 
that for a great many years? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir; I do not. I think a one-chamber lock would 
accommodate all the business. I do not look to see more than ten 
ships a day going through that canal, five each way. 

Senator Hanna. The duplicate lock could be built at any time. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Harris. You could look forward to completing it after¬ 
ward. 

Mr. Morison. But I consider that the second lock is needed as an 
element of insurance. You can not afford to have your canal blocked 
by an accident to one lock. If you knock down a gate, or anything 
goes wrong with a lock, your whole traffic is closed until it is repaired. 

Senator Harris. Then it is simply a matter of reserve accommoda¬ 
tion? 

Mr. Morison. If you have two locks, you can use one while you 
are repairing the other. That is the only reason that I can see for 
using double locks, but I think it is a sufficient reason. 

The Chairman. I believe, Mr. Morison, that you were assigned as 
chairman of a subcommittee of three engineers to investigate the 
Panama route and the routes lying below or to the eastward. 

Mr. Morison. I was on two committees. One was for the Panama 
route, and of that I was not chairman. One was for the routes east 
of Panama. I was chairman of that committee. 

The Chairman. You devoted your special attention to those routes. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Hawley. Have you paid any attention to the Darien route ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; 1 have, a great deal. 

The Chairman. He testified about that before you came in, Senator. 

Senator Hawley. What does he think of it? 

Mr. Morison. Which route? 

Senator Hawley. That one that calls for a 9-mile tunnel, the San 
Bias route. 

Mr. Morison. The San Bias route is the best that has ever been dis¬ 
covered on the Isthmus, until you get in 2 miles from the sea at each end. 

Senator Hawley. At which end ? 

Mr. Morison. At each end. It is more than 2 miles on the Pacific 
end. So far as length of line and convenience of approach and harbors 
are concerned it is the best line there is; but it involves a tunnel which 
1 consider absolutely fatal to it. 

Senator Millard. You feel that the tunnel is impracticable? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; and even if that tunnel were perfectly practica¬ 
ble, I consider that the objection to taking ships through a tunnel 4 or 
5 miles long would exceed all possible benefits and advantages which 
that line might have. 

Senator Millard. What are the objections? 

Mr. Morison. In the first place, the tunnel ties 3 r ou up in your 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


21 


»u can not enlarge the tunnel. When it is done you 
se the size of your ships. It is the unit. Two ships 


dimensions. You 

never can increase the size of your ships. It is the unit. Two ships 
can not meet in the tunnel. \ou have to send one ship through at a 
time. Perhaps you can follow it by another going in the same direc¬ 
tion, but no ship can come through from the other direction until the 
tunnel is cleared. Then you have the question of ventilating that 
tunnel. \ ou have your bad air coming out of your smokestacks and 
all that kind of thing while you are going through. You have a large 
water resistance in there. If anything happens to a ship in the tunnel 
it is going to be a very awkward thing to get it out. If anything 
should happen which would cause the ship to sink or ground in the 
tunnel it would be a very difficult thing to get her out at all. Plere 
is a sketch showing the size of tunnel selected by the Commission and 
the steamer Deutschland going through it. You see her masts would 
have to lie changed. 

Senator Hawley. That is a cross section of the tunnel? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Millard. This is supposed to be a ship passing through 
there? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Millard. It would pretty well till the tunnel? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. Now, if anything happened to the ship, how 
would you get hold of it to get her afloat? 

Senator Millard. I do not know. That is what I am asking you 
about. 

Mr. Morison. I do not know. 

Senator Millard. I have heard a good many people speak of this 
as a proper thing to do, as a great saver of money and distance. 

Mr. Morison. I do not think it would save anv money, and it would 
involve risks which you would not have on the other routes. 

Senator Hanna. In the cost of operation you would save money by 
a sea-level canal, would you not? 

Mr. Morison. Very little. It costs very little more to operate 
locks. The cost of operation of locks is very small. That would be 
a canal anyway 30 miles long, which is a canal all the way. One of 
the advantages of this present plan of the Commission, the plan for the 
Panama Canal, is that your canal is nowhere over about 20 miles long. 
You go barely 20 miles and you come to Lake Bohio, where there is 
good anchorage, where you can lie up if anything is wrong, where 
there is plenty-of room for passing, and when you get to the other 
end of that lake it is only about a dozen miles then to the Pacific. 

We will suppose two fleets of half a dozen ships each waiting at each 
end of the canal in the morning. They could start in, one from Panama 
and the other from Colon. They would meet in Lake Bohio, where 
there was plenty of room to pass, and each of them would go through 
the last lock by daylight and be able to go out into the other ocean; 
or, if they wanted to enter the canal in the afternoon, they would 
get up to Lake Bohio, and if they did not want to go through any portion 
of the narrow canal in the darkness they could anchor there and go 
down in the morning. I think to get through this canal 30 miles 
long with the tunnel would be quite as great as to go through the 
Panama Canal would be, every bit. 

Senator Millard. Would it be practicable to carry a ship through 
that tunnel by electrical power? 


22 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MoRISON. 


Mr. Morison. I suppose it might be done. 

Senator Millard. I know it was suggested by an engineer. 

Mr. Morison. It would require very powerful machinery to do it. 

Senator Harris. There is really no reason why that outside power 
should be used instead of the ship’s own power, is there ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; there is in the tunnel. If you use an artitical 
outside power you do not till your tunnel with smoke. That is the 
only reason; but the amount of power that it will take to go through 
the tunnel even at 4 miles an hour is very large. To take that ship 
through at 4 miles an hour would probably require 5,000 horsepower 
and more. It would lie likely to take 10,000 horsepower. 

Senator Millard. The length of this tunnel is about 5 miles, is it 
not? 

Mr. Morison. That depends entirely on how deep you make the 
open cut. In the various routes we considered I think the lengths of 
tunnel varied from a mile and a half to about 5 miles. 

Senator Harris. That would require an open cut 400 feet deep' 

Mr. Morison. Yes; which is a hundred feet higher than people have 
generally considered expedient. 

Senator Harris. What do you think of the feasibility of a sea-level 
canal at any time in the future at Panama? 

Mr. Morison. A sea-level canal is feasible now at Panama if you 
are willing to take tw T enty years to build it. It will lie very much 
more difficult to enlarge a canal built there with locks to a sea-level 
standard than to build a new one. 

Senator Harris. The location would be varied somewhat? 

Mr. Morison. There is another possible location at Panama which, 
if the lock canal were built on the present line, might possibly be 
available for a sea-level canal; but my impression is that it would be 
better to deepen the canal near the present location. 

Senator Harris. A good deal has been said about curvature. The 
Commission made ample allowance for the difficulties of curvature on 
both lines. On the Nicaragua line, where there was supposed to be 
more curvature, their plan contemplates the possibility of a ship navi¬ 
gating the canal without any difficulty, and without the necessity of 
tugs in getting around curves, does it not ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; it contemplates that, and the curvature in the 
Commission's report is very much less than that of any previous com¬ 
mission’s report. At the same time there is a great deal more curva¬ 
ture, very much sharper curvature, by the Nicaragua route than by the 
Panama route. 

Senator Harris. Do you remember what is the curvature on the 
Manchester Canal—the shortest radius? 

Mr. Morison. 1 can not tell you, but it is pretty sharp. 

Senator Harris. Less than 2,000 feet? 

Mr. Morison. I think it is about two thousand feet. They have a 
good deal of trouble in navigating the Manchester ship canal, which 
I think is principally due to want of draft. 

Senator Harris. The canal, I believe, is of less width than is con¬ 
templated here. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; this canal is of very large dimensions. And 
there is a thing about the tunnel which I forgot to mention. That is 
100 feet at the base, which is 50 feet narrower than we contemplated 
for the canal anywhere else in our estimates. 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


23 


Senator Harris. The question of draft would be a very serious one 
in there owing to the constriction and the shallowness too. 

Mr. Morison. Tes; and the resistance, in taking a ship through 
there. 

Senator Harris. Dragging the water. 

Mr. Morison . Yes; the water has got to get behind you, and one effect 
of carrying that water through a narrow space is going to be that the 
surface will sink, and instead of having 35 feet, you will probably have 
about 33Y or something like that; perhaps not as much. This shows 
dO feet at the center, but only at the center. It is proportioned for 35 
feet. 


Senator Millard. Your ships would all have to go one way at a 
time only. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; even little ones. I do not believe I should 
be willing to have any ship pass another in the canal. 

Thereupon (at 11.50 o’clock a. m.), the committee took a recess 
until 2.30 p. m. • 


Washington. D. C., 
Wednesday , February 12, 1002. 
The subcommittee met at 2.30 o’clock p. m. 

Present: Senators Morgan (chairman), Hanna, Foster, Kittredge, 
and Harris. 


ADDITIONAL STATEMENT 0E MR. GEORGE S. MORISON. 


Senator Hanna. You have stated that you are a member of the 
Isthmian Canal Commission. 

Mr. Morison. I have. 


Senator Hanna. And that you have spent in that work about how 
long a time? 

Mr. Morison. Well, it is about two years and a half since 1 was 
appointed on that Commission, which has taken the major part of my 
time, either in work or thought, since I was appointed. 

Senator Hanna. And of course you have made a very careful study 
of this question in all of its features, bearings, and results? 

Mr. Morison. I have endeavored to. 

Senator Hanna. Taking into consideration all the information and 
bringing to your aid all of the experience of your life as an engineer, 
which route, in your judgment, is the best for this Government to estab¬ 
lish as an isthmian canal, to be owned and operated by the United 
States ? 


Mr. Morison. I think the Panama route is decidedly the best, and 
for a good many reasons. 

Senator Hanna. If you care to, you can state the reasons. 

Mr. Morison. Well, in the first place, 1 think it is better simply as 
a matter of engineering construction. The construction of the Panama 
canal is work which is now practically visible; the country has been 
cleared and we can see what it is. It consists really of two or three 
classes of work only, of which, with my views as to how the rest of the 
work should lie done, the Culebra cut is the only one of extraordinary 



24 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


magnitude, the only one which would control the time of construction. 
That Culebra cut is undoubtedly the largest piece of earthwork ever 
attempted; it will require special machinery to carry it out economic¬ 
ally. It is a piece of work that reminds me of what a teacher said to 
me when I was in Exeter, over forty years ago, that if he had five 
minutes in which to solve a problem he would spend three in deciding 
the best way to do it. I think if you spend two years in getting ready 
you will have the work done quicker than if you start in six months, 
and I think that with a thoroughly organized outfit that work can be 
done for a less price than the Commission has estimated. 

Mr. Hanna. And in less time? 

Mr. Morison. Probably it can. It is a question of special machinery, 
but machinery which we know how to make. It is preeminently the 
kind of work which American contractors adapt themselves to doing. 
Then I consider that the question of water supply and the regulation 
of the summit level has been solved in a very satisfactory way. Beyond 
that, the question of the harbors, though perhaps not much less expen¬ 
sive, are much less complicated and involve many less doubtful fea¬ 
tures than the control of the harbors at Nicaraugua. Panama is now 
all that is needed. Colon is all that is needed for vessels drawing 26 
feet and under for three hundred and sixty-two days of the year. It 
has to be deepened, and there has to be some method of allowing ships 
to run in under shelter during the two or three days when there is a 
northwest wind. 

Senator Harris. That two or three days of northwest wind you 
intend to mean the storm intervals that occur occasionally throughout 
the year? 

Mr. Morison. They very seldom occur more than once or twice a 
year. 

Senator Harris. You do not mean that there is any series of two or 
three days when there is a northwest wind? 

Mr. Morison. No. sir; but 1 mean that those winds come, and when 
they come, ships can not lie at the wharves. They have never been 
able to do so. 

Senator Hanna. But that does not occur oftener than once or twice 


or three times a year. 

Senator Harris. That is what I was getting at, that he meant the 
occurrence of those storms. 

Mr. Morison. In some years it may not occur and in some it may 
occur two or three times a year. The Pacific Mail steamers in old 
times used to run out and go to Porto Bello, where they were amply 
protected. 


Senator Kittredge. How far is that from Colon? 

Mr. Morison. Fifteen or twenty miles. It is a little harbor that 
was the first Spanish port there. 

In general, I feel that the estimates for the Panama work are liberal 
and it will probably be finished for the estimated sum. I do not 
believe the Nicaraugua route will. I think the percentage allowed, 
when you consider that it is an undeveloped country where nothing 
has ever been done and where knowledge is derived only from borings 
and surveys, and much preliminary work, which has been done at Pan¬ 
ama, remains to be done at Nicaraugua. I think that instead of that 
adding a contingent allowance of 20 per cent, it would properly be 
about 30 per cent. 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


25 


Senator Hanna. That would make a difference in the neighborhood 
of ten or fifteen million dollars? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. 


Senator Hanna. With the Panama canal completed, a ship can enter 
the canal by either end in the morning and pass the last lock and prob¬ 
ably come into the ocean by dark? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; I consider that a very great advantage. Canals 
can be navigated by night, and 1 have no doubt they will be, but you 
want to avoid it if you possibly can, especially in one of those climates 
which is subject to serious rains. Lake Bohio makes an artificial lake 
in the middle of the canal which, when completed, will not be different 
from a natural lake, and it has all of the necessary space for anchorage 
and anything of that kind; a ship can lie there over night, or fleets 
that enter both ends in the morning can pass there. 

Senator Hanna. How long is that lake? 

Mr. Morison. About thirteen miles; the wide portion of it is per¬ 
haps eight. 

Senator Hanna. To a depth of water all over? 

Mr. Morison. The upper end is not deep enough for big ships to 
get out of the channel. At the lower end there is a great abundance; 
small ships could go some distance from the channel in the upper end. 

Senator Harris. What is the greatest width of the deep water, if you 
remem her ? 


Mr. Morison. I can not tell you that, but it would be measured by 
miles. 

Senator Hanna. The lake must extend very considerablv—some dis- 
tance above the dam? 

Mr. Morison. The lake fills not only the valley of the Chagres, but 
the valleys of the tributaries of the Chagres, and the greatest width 
would be where it filled up one of those side tributaries. It is a very 
irregular-shaped sheet of water. 

Senator Hanna. There would be bays around the edge of the lake, 
with deep water? 

The Chairman. Do you recollect how many tributaries there are 
into Lake Bohio? 


Mr. Morison. No, sir. 

Senator Hanna. Is there more than one? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; every stream that runs into the lake is a tribu¬ 
tary, and some of them are so small that they are insignificant, and 
there are several of size. 

The Chairman. Can you name any one of the principal ones? 

Mr. Morison. The Gigante comes in from the south. 

The Chairman. Does that go into the basin of the lake ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. And flows through and enters into the Chagres 
River? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, it does now flow into the Chagres River. When 
the work is done the Chagres River will flow up the course of the 
Gigante and discharge over the spillway. 

The Chairman. And come out the other way? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. I can not recall names of the streams. There 
are several others. 

The Chairman. Does that Gigante Creek enter into the Chagres, 
unite with the Chagres, above the Bohio Dam? 


26 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


Mr. Morison. Yes, it does. 

The Chairman. How far above? 

Mr. Morison. About 2 miles. 

The Chairman. It is a little bit of a rivulet, is it not? 

Mr. Morison. It is not a very large stream, but a good deal of 
water must come down it in the wet seasons. There is enough water 
entering Lake Bohio between Obispo, where the canal leaves it, and 
Bohio, where the dam would lie, to make the discharge of the Chagres 
at Bohio from one-third to one-half more than it is at Obispo. In 
other words, the flow of the streams which enter the Chagres in the 
limits of the lake would be something like one-half the flow of the 
whole river where it enters the lake from above. 

Senator Hanna. You spoke this morning about the Bohio Dam, and 
it is not necessary to repeat, but testimony has been given here that 
the silt from the Chagres River would, within probably a space of 
twenty years, fill up that dam. 

Mr. Morison. I do not think there is any possibility of that. The 
Chagres River rises in the mountains where there are no signs of any 
silt. The banks of the river above the site of the Alhajuela Dam are 
rockv, with some verv coarse gravel, like a mountain stream which 
carries no silt. Belo.w that point you And the first signs of silt. 
There is silt in the banks of the river 10 miles below Alhajuela, 
and from there down it increases. So long as the river runs as it does 
now it will wash those silt banks and carry them down and move about 
more or less silt; that is, in times of high water. If, however, you 
build a dam across that river and convert it into a lake, you stop the 
current that washes the silt, and that silt remains practically undis¬ 
turbed in the bottom of the lake, and the only silt brought into the 
lake will be the infinitesimal amount which is brought bv the moun- 
tain stream above those limits. That is one reason why I prefer the 
Commission’s plan, which puts the level at 85 feet, rather than a lower 
one, because it will flood the valley of the Chagres up to the upper 
limits of any silt banks. 

The Chairman. What would the distance be from the present dam 
site ? 

Mr. Morison. Something over 20 miles. 

Senator Hanna. Slack water? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. 

Senator Hanna. When the dam is finished? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; but the upper 7 are not in the line of the canal; 
it is an extension where steamboats—little boats—can go for bananas 
or something of that kind, but it will not be on the route of deep¬ 
water navigation. 

Senator Hanna. Then in your judgment that danger of filling up 
the lake from deposits from the river would be little? 

Mr. Morison. I do not consider that it amounts to anything. That 
is one of the functions of lakes; they are settling basins. You never 
find a river that runs out of a lake which carries with it much silt. 

Senator Kittredge. What about the cost of the maintenance and 
operation of the Panama Canal as compared with the other? 

Mr. Morison. Our Commission made an estimate by figuring out the 
number of dredges that would probably be needed and the force of 
men probably required, and it came to $2,000,000 for the Panama 
Canal and about $3,300,000 for Nicaragua. Each canal has got to 
keep a certain staff independent of that which actually handles the 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


27 


material. I think that probably that is as fair an estimate as can 
be made. 

Senator Hanna. Testimony has been given here by a naval officer 
who is not an engineer, but who had been on the isthmus on a pleasure 
trip, I believe, to the effect that there were 3 or 4 miles or 5 miles 
of the bed of the canal where, at a depth of about 8 feet from the 
surface, they had struck a volcanic formation of rock, spongy and 
porous, upon which the explosion of dynamite had no effect, and that 
in order to deepen that to the required depth of 35 feet for the canal 
they would have to build a cofferdam and pump the water out, and 
then cut that material out with some machinery, the same as you 
would cut anything that could be cut by steel. Do you know of any 
such place? 

Mr. Morison. I don’t know of any such place. Around Colon Har¬ 
bor the bottom rock is a coral rock, which is—I am not sure but what 
it would be a bad rock to blast. On the other hand, it would be a 
comparatively easy rock to work in other ways. 

That class of material is found wherever you have lava; that is, 
you are liable to have a porous lava. There is a great deal of it in 
Arizona, in which powder seems to find a side vent through fissures. 
There may be some at Panama, although I do not know of it. 

Senator Hanna. If there had been conditions such as I have 
described, which would cause the engineers in charge to abandon the 
work until such time as they could construct a cofferdam, you prob¬ 
ably would have heard of it ? 

Mr. Me >rison. I think so. I think that class of material is much 
more likely to be found in Nicaragua than in Panama, for the reason 
that the Nicaragua country contains a great deal more signs of vol¬ 
canic activity, and that class of rock is such as comes from recent vol¬ 
canos. 

Senator Hanna. With reference to Culebra cut, vou have stated this 
morning that it is only a question of magnitude, and not of physical 
or engineering difficulty, and you now say that with modern machinery 
you think that work could be carried on more rapidly than it has been 
up to the present time. What have you to say with reference to the 
drainage of that cut? Is that provided for ? I understand this mate¬ 
rial through which that cut is made is hard clay, almost approaching 
the tenacity of rock, but that it washes or dissolves in water or in con¬ 
tact with water. 

Mr. Morison. I do not think that amounts to anything. It is a clay; 
it is a hard clay; it does weather; it would weather very rapidly in a 
northern climate where we have frost. In that climate it weathers, 
but I think it will weather very slowly. The appearance of the slopes 
of the cut as far as it has been taken out indicates this. The only 
thing that gives any doubt of the stability of that material is that if 
you take a small piece of it and drop it into a glass of water it very 
soon falls into a powder, and that is a very curious thing. I picked 
out a piece of that stuff myself from a point 60 feet below their exca¬ 
vations. I went down in a bucket into a test pit. That pit had been 
full of water for a year, and they had just pumped it out, and I took 
out a piece of clay and it seemed to be in fair condition. 1 brought it 
to Colon and put it in water and it fell to pieces just as the others did. 
Now, that our estimates have provided for. We have provided for a 
heavy retaining Avail the entire length of that Culebra cut on each side. 

Senator Harris. That is on each side of the canal, and not of the cut. 


28 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MOIRSON. 


Mr. Morison. No, sir; not of the cut. The greater portion of it is 
under water. We have estimated more than $9,000,000 for that wall. 
There are the exact figures [referring to a table], those two added, 
before the 20 per cent is put on. This is one of the things that make 
me feel that our estimate for the Panama route is much more liberal 
than our estimate for Nicaragua, for if we had had only borings of the 
cut, and had not seen the actual material in it, we should never have 
thought of putting it in. 

Senator Hanna. From any superficial examination? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. How far below the bottom of the canal does that 
wall go? 

Mr. Morison. Only about 3 feet below the bottom of the canal. It 
reaches from the bottom of the canal about 5 feet above the highest 
water in the canal. 

The Chairman. That is to say, it reaches from 3 feet below the bot- 
tom of the canal up to the distance you stated above high water ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; and then the slopes are estimated on the basis 
that they come down to the bottom of the canal. Now. that leaves a 
bench 50 feet wide on each side, on the level at the top of that wall, so 
that any material that may fall down from the slope has a bench 50 
feet wide to land on. 

Senator Harris. Is it not 35 feet? That was mentioned as the basis 
of that berme. 

Mr. Morison. It is possible that I am wrong. One of our plans 
was 50 feet. It probably would be 50 feet actually, because we should 
probably not take out the canal with a fiat slope, but with a series of 
benches—steeper intermediate slopes. 

Senator Harris. The general slope, I believe, is considered to be 
one to one. 

Mr. Morison. It is estimated as exactly one to one, terminating at 
the bottom of the canal. 

Senator Harris. Do you think that clay, with the rainfall and its 
inclination to disintegrate, is safe at a slope of one to one? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; 1 think if the cut was only 50 feet deep, it would 
be safe almost vertical. 

Senator Harris. Here the practice ordinarily in earth cuts, railroad 
cuts, it is about one and one-half to one. 

Mr. Morison. That depends on the quality of the soil. It is gen¬ 
erally one to one. In many parts of the West it is one-half to one, 
and in many parts of the South it is as low as one-quarter to one. But 
here you have the worst possible conditions, because we have a maxi¬ 
mum amount of freezing and thawing. 

Senator Hanna. In the north, you mean? 

Mr. Morison. We have it worst right here in Washington. 

Senator Hanna. I mean in this latitude. You have made no pro¬ 
vision for surface water, keeping it out of the cut? 

Mr. Morison. That does not require any particular estimate. It is 
simply a matter of care in depositing the spoil banks. They have to 
be so deposited that they do not hold water behind them. That has 
not always been done in the French management, but it can be done. 

The Chairman. Do those slopes in the Culebra and the Emperador 
cuts readily cover themselves with vegetation ? 

Mr. Morison. They have not much. It seems to be a very hard 
material—too hard for vegetation to grow on readily. 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


29 


Senator Hanna. From the cut west to the Pacific Ocean are there 
any physical conditions there that need special attention? 

Mr. Morison. Nothing’ unusual. There is a long channel out into 
Panama Bay. It is somewhat the same class of work as in Mobile 
Bay, only it is not so long; it is not more than a quarter as long. 

The Chairman. There is no coral in Mobile Bay ? 

Mr. Morison. There is no coral in Panama Bay. It is at Colon 
that the coral is found. There is coral in the approach to the bay, but 
not w here the harbor channel is. There is coral between La Boca 
and the first lock, but not where the harbor channel is. 

Senator Hanna. That is in the shore? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. 

Senator Hanna. But not out to sea? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir. The steamers that now enter Panama Bay 
are perfectly willing to ground. 

Senator Hanna. But they anchor out I miles? 

Mr. Morison. Well, this channel would be in the same kind of a 


region. 


Senator Harris. But under the coating of mud there still might be 
coral. It has been testified that this excavation will require consider¬ 
able excavation of coral. 

Mr. Morison. There is some excavation of coral rock inside of 
low-water shore line in Panama Bay. I don't think there is anything 
outside. 

Senator Hanna. I think it was Mr. Haupt that gave that informa¬ 
tion to the committee. Was he there with you? 

Mr. Morison. No; he did not go to the Isthmus with the Commission. 
He had been down there before, but he did not go with the Com¬ 
mission. 

Senator Hanna. Had he been there as a member of a former Com¬ 
mission ? 

Mr. Morison. He had been there as a member of the Nicaragua 
Commission. He had been to Nicaragua, and they also went to Panama. 

Senator Hanna. Why did they go to Panama? 

Mr. Morison. I was not a member of the Commission and I do not 
know. 

The Chairman. That is the Commission of which Admiral Walker 
was the president ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; they spent some time in Nicaragua and returned 
by way of Colon, and while there they went over the route of the canal. 

Senator Hanna. But Mr. Haupt was not on the Isthmus at either 
the Panama or the Nicaragua line in the last Commission ? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir. The channel now from deepwater in to the 
mouth of the canal at La Boca is deep enough to take any ship that 
would ever want to use the canal at high water. It is not deep enough 
to do it at low water. 

Senator Hanna. At mean tide how would it be? 

Mr. Morison. At mean tide I think it might do, although the chan¬ 
nel is not quite what would be wanted for mean tide. In fact, in my 
judgment, it would lie an unwise expenditure to deepen that channel 
to 35 feet below low water, but that is the estimate of the Commission. 
That will give 15 feet at mean tide and 55 feet at high tide. Those 
are conditions which have never been made at any ports that I know 
of anywhere in the world where they have that range of tide. They 
consider it justifiable to take advantage of the tide to get in. Now 


30 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


ships can enter Liverpool Harbor, that is, they can go over the mouth 
of the Mersey at low water, but they can not dock without about two- 
thirds tide. 

Senator Hanna. With reference to the curvatures on the Panama 
route, testimony has been given here that there is one curve in the 
harbor of Colon which is at a sharper angle than that of anv other on 
either route. Do you consider that as proposed to be constructed, 
with 500 or 600 or 800 feet wide at the bottom, that it is any disadvan¬ 
tage in the operation of vessels? 

Mr. Morison. A vessel must go slow to go arbund it. That curve 
comes at just the place where any ship entering the canal will have to 
stop to be entered and pay her tolls and other things of that kind. She 
will probably stop before she goes around that curve and have some¬ 
thing to help her around it. 

Senator Hanna. Then from that until she enters the Pacific the 
curvature is very easy ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; it is easier than in any canal of importance in 
the world. 

Senator Hanna. Easier than any in the world? 

Mr. Morison. 1 think so. The matter of a curve is a very different 
thing according to its location. On the Suez Canal they formerly had, 
and 1 think they still have, an extremely sharp curve. 

Senator Harris. When you speak of the Panama being less than 
any other in the world, are not all of the curves, both on the Nicaragua 
and the others, easier than any other canal? 

Mr. Morison. I do not want to sa\ r that the Nicaragua is not; 1 can 
not say that it is. At a place on the Suez Canal the canal forms a sort 
of fan in this way, and a ship will come in here and then she would 
have that bay to back around into and then go on. It would be a very 
simple thing to change this curve that we are speaking of at Colon into 
a large triangular space. Probably that would be done. 

Senator Hanna. By cutting off the point? 

Mr. Morison. Not by cutting off the point, but by cutting opposite 
the point. If you will give me a pencil and a piece of paper I will 
show you what it is. [Drawing diagram on paper.] Here is the outer 
bank, and the canal comes in here. This is widened out for a broad 
canal. Here is the harbor out here, and here is a place where the 
statue of Columbus stands. One reason for getting around there quick 
is that if you come around there this point at once becomes a shelter; 
but if you were to take cut corner out there a ship could come up here, 
pull up along there, and then whenever she is ready to go a tug could 
very quickly pull her bow around there and she would go right off. 
1 do not think that is to be counted as a curvature in the canal. 

Senator Hanna. Quite a feature has been made of the sanitary con¬ 
ditions along the route of the Panama Canal—that owing to the climate 
and other things there is a great deal of mortality. At the time you 
were there what were the conditions as compared with former years? 

Mr. Morison. We were there not a great while. There was yellow 
fever there when we were there. I do not think there was a" great 
deal. 

Senator Hanna. I mean as applied more particularly to the work¬ 
ing force along the whole route. 

Mr. Morison. I don’t think there was much sickness among the 
men along the whole district. 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


31 


Senator Hanna. In the early days there was a great, deal. 

Mr. Morison. I think the diseases at Panama are very largely due 
to artificial conditions. The Isthmus of Panama has always been an 
unhealthy place. It has been inhabited for four hundred years, and I 
think you may say that there is not a water pipe or a sewer on the 
whole Isthmus. The city of Panama has never had so bad a reputa¬ 
tion for sickness as Santiago de Cuba, and we know what has been 
done at Santiago de Cuba. I think that we know now how to handle 
sanitary conditions at Panama. 

Senator Hanna. Well, that is in the city of Panama; but the evidence 
was furnished here that out of a working force of 400 men—I have 
forgotten now the length of time they were at work—when they left 
there only 10 ever reached this country alive. 

Mr. Morison. Well? 

Senator Hanna. About 400 were taken out there, and they all died 
off but about 20 or 30, and most of them died before they got back. 

Mr. Morison. Well, that is perfectly possible in time of low- 
fever epidemic. The first thing to do on the Isthmus is to get a sup¬ 
ply of good water. There is plenty of good water on the Isthmus, but 
the people do not have it; and the next thing is to dispose of their 
sewerage. With those two conditions met, three-fourths of the sick¬ 
ness on the Isthmus will disappear. 

Senator Hanna. The French company had studied all those condi¬ 
tions before they made any preparations to avoid these troubles. 

Mr. Morison. I can not say that they have studied them very much. 
You see they abandoned their work there ten years ago, and the advance 
in sanitary matters in the last ten years has exceeded what it was in 
the previous fifty years. 

Senator Harris. It will be necessary not only to take care of the 
health of the employees right along the line, but the health of the city 
of Panama itself has to be looked after. 

Mr. Morison. Certainly; that is absolutely necessary. 

Senator Harris. It becomes a radiating center of disease otherwise ? 

Mr. Morison. The city of Panama must be treated in the same way 
as Habana. The whole Isthmus must be treated in that way. 

Senator Hanna. In a malarial country like that, is it not true that 
a good deal of sickness in the nature of fevers comes from the break¬ 
ing up and disturbing of primitive soil? 

Mr. Morison. That has always been the theory, and I think that it 
is probably correct. The Panama Railroad Company makes it a rule 
with their white employees to give them two months' furlough every 
year—one month at full pay and one month without pay—and to give 
them transportation between New York and Colon back and forth, 
they paying their own board on the ship. With that provision they 
do not seem to have any special difficulty with the health of their men. 

Senator Harris. The Commission make no estimate whatever as to 
the sanitation of Panama and Colon? 

Mr. Morison. Not in detail. That is one of the things which is 
included in the 20 per cent, and it is my own judgment that the sanitation 
of the Isthmus of Panama involves much less untried work than the 
sanitation of the swamps of Nicaragua. In fact, our experience in 
Cuba has been of enormous value in showing what could be done at 
Panama. I can not say that it has been of value in teaching us how 
to handle swamps. 


32 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORTSON. 


Senator Harris. Well, swamps will not produce yellow fever. 

Mr. Morison. If the last reports are correct, we can get rid of 
yellow fever by killing the mosquitoes. The swamps will produce 
fevers that are worse than yellow fever. 

Senator Hanna. Then, summing up the proposition of the Panama 
Canal route, there are to your mind no physical difficulties that are 
insurmountable or approaching that, and no engineering difficulties 
but what can be easily overcome? 

Mr. Morison. Well, which it is perfectly practical to overcome. 

Senator Hanna. That is better In view of those facts, do you con¬ 
sider the price at which this property is offered to us a reasonable 
price ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; I do. 

Senator Hanna. Do you consider it a low price? 

Mr. Morison. I consider it a very fair price. That price repre¬ 
sents, as near as we could estimate it, what would have to be expended 
now, if nothing had been done in the Isthmus, to put the Isthmus in 
such condition that the cost of the completing of the canal would be 
what it is now. 

Senator Hanna. When that proposition was made by the new com¬ 
pany I understand that it did not embrace a great deal of machinery, 
in the way of locomotives and other machinery there, that has since 
been added to the scrap pile which we buy. 

Mr. Morison. Yes. I would not give anything for any of the 
machinery down there. 

Senator Hanna. Because vou could get better? 

Mr. Morison. Because it is twenty years old. You can not afford 
to use it. The locomotives are too small; they have not more than 
half the power they ought to have, and there are a great many 
machines there that nobody has ever discovered the use of. 

Senator Hanna. You say that Mr. Haupt was not on the Isthmus. 
What work was assigned to him as his work on the Commission? 

Mr. Morison. He was a member of what we call the committee on 


value of the canal. He attended all of the meetings, or nearly all of 
them, when the} T were held in Washington, and followed up a good 
many subjects, but I do not know why he did not go to the Isthmus. 

Senator Hanna. Have you ever been over the route of the Nicaragua 
Canal ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; the whole of it. 

Senator Hanna. How long a time did you spend? 

Mr. Morison. I went with the Commission. We were about a 
month going over it. 

The Chairman. Did you go through those swamps that we have 
been talking about? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; I did not go through, but went into them and 
saw a good deal of them. Men who were on the lines went through 
them. You can only go through them in boats, and by occasionally 
wading. 

The Chairman. Did the engineers have boats? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; nobody could go through those swamps in any 
other way. 

The Chairman. How many lines have been run through there? 

Mr. Morison. I could not tell you. 

The Chairman. Quite a number? 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


38 


Mr. Morison. Yes; some of them were*run by the present Commis¬ 
sion and some by the preceding* Commission. 

The Chairman. Well, beginning* as far back as Childs’s lines upon 
lines that have been run through there? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; Colonel Childs was the first man to make a 
good survey of the Nicaragua route, and I believe that at the time 
Mr. Childs made that survey the Nicaragua route was probably 
the best route. At that time he made the statement, I think, that there 
were only 15 ships in existence that drew IT feet, and his plans were 
made for a canal 17 feet deep. He then made a further estimate fora 
canal 12 feet deep. What he proposed Avas a system of slack-water 
navigation of the San Juan River which was very attractive. 

The Chairman. That was a dam at every rapid? 

Mr. Morison. A dam which would submerge every rapid. That 
made the canal a very attractive thing, for if you improve the navi¬ 
gation of the San Juan a vessel could go up the river and across the 
lake to within about 12 miles of the Pacific. It seemed as if all that 
had to be done was to build a canal about 17 miles long to connect the 
lake with the Pacific. 

The dams which would make slack-water navigation would have to 
be founded on sand for the lower half of the river. The river is 
100 miles long, and it is 100 feet higher at one end than it is at the 
other. That tells the story to an engineer. No river can fall a foot 
in a mile without having a great many obstructions, and in the lower 
half of that river, below the San Carlos, these obstructions are all sand 
bars. It was Colonel Childs’s scheme to put in a series of low dams 
and a series of locks of low lift, and in that way get slack-water navi¬ 
gation—the same thing that had been in many of the rivers of this 
country, though it is nearly all abandoned now. 

The Chairman. He ran his line into Greytown? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. He did not run it out to the mouth of the San Carlos? 

Mr. Morison. At that time the largest channel of the San Juan was 
the one that bears that name. The Colorado is the largest now. 

The Chairman. Did he channelize at all except on the other side of 
the lake? Did he have any actual canals dug? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; there was a canal under his plan through the 
low country. 

The Chairman. Through these very bottoms that you are talking 
about now? 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. 1 low long was that ? 

Mr. Morison. I can not tell you; it is in the report. 

The Chairman. Was it not as much as 18 miles? 

Mr. Morison. It may have been. 

The Chairman. That was a practicable canal for ships of that size? 

Mr. Morison. I think so. 

The Chairman. Could you put such a canal as that between Panama 
and Colon, across the Culebra Hills and keep it supplied with water? 

Mr. Morison. Well, it would depend upon how high you went up. 
I do not know that you could unless you pumped the water. Y o 
could not have gone up any great height without pumping your water. 

The Chairman. That is what I mean. 

Mr. Morison. And that was a sufficient reason for adopting Nicar- 


-3 


GSM 



34 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORrSON. 


agua 


you 


cer- 


at that time, but with the increased draft of ships and the 
increased depth required in a canal the whole thing was changed. I 
think the first confession of that came from Mr. Monocal, when he 
decided to abandon the Lower San Juan entirely, to build a dam at 
Ochoa, and to extend the level of Lake Nicaragua into a side basin 
until he got pretty near to the sea. 

The Chairman. He would save about 13 miles on the lines that he 
laid down. 

Mr. Morison. Yes; his line would be an ideal line if it could be 
built. 

The Chairman. That was not a confession, but it was the adoption 
of a shorter line. 

Mr. Morgan. I think it was a confession that he could not improve 
the San Juan River, that you have got to abandon the San Juan River 
instead of following it down. 

The Chairman. Do vou remember any statement of Mr. Menocal 

mJ my 

to the effect that he could not carry the canal through? 

Mr. Morison. No; I do not know that he made one. 

The Chairman. When he makes a statement to the reverse, 
would not consider that he had confessed that he could not do it? 

Mr. Morison. It depends upon what meaning you take. He 
tainty considered that the other thing was better. 

The Chairman. There is no doubt about that. 

Senator Hanna. Was that the line adopted by what was known as 
the Maritime Canal Company ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; the difficulties of that were extreme. Their 
dam across the San Juan was at Ochoa; the Ochoa Dam had to be 
founded in sand, and had to be founded in the current of the river, for 
there was no means of diverting the river anywhere else. Further¬ 
more, the dam was not the whole difficulty; the summit level had to be 
maintained by a long series of embankments. Each successive exami¬ 
nation has led to an improvement in the line between the San Juan 
River and the sea. 1 think the line adopted by the present Commis¬ 
sion is very decidedly better than any of the others, but when it is 
done it involves a continuous canal from the ocean at Grey town to the 
entrance of the San Juan. 

The Chairman. To Conchuda? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; to the San Juan above Conchuda, which is as long 
as the entire Panama Canal and is a canal all the way without any relief 
from lakes or anything of that kind; it is a canal for the whole distance. 

The Chairman. That is the canal that you have adopted? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. And recommended to the Government? 

Mr. Morison. That is the one that we considered the best location in 


Nicaragua. 

The Chairman. Iam not asking what Mr. Menocal’s judgment was, 
or his hopes for the future. You considered his routes impracticable 
from an engineering standpoint? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; both from an engineering standpoint and a mili¬ 
tary standpoint, because it could be very easily destroyed. 

There is one thing that I have never seen mentioned. It may 
amount to something and it may not. A ship could enter the Nicara¬ 
gua canal at Brito, and after it had entered it a foreign fleet could sail 
from the dockyard at Kingston and reach the Greytown end of the 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S'. MoRISON. 35 


canal before that ship got through the canal. It could not do it at 
Panama. 

Idle Chairman. If that is so, having a foreign vessel hostile to the 
Lnited States, if one was to enter upon the Pacific side of that canal 
could not a ship sail from Key West or Habana before the ship could 
get through ? 


Mr. Morison. h(o, sir. 

The Chairman. What would be the difference in the distance? 

Mr. Morison. You can not do it. We can just do it from Kingston, 
Jamaica. Jamaica is pretty well situated to get at the Isthmus. 

Senator Hanna. The Commission in their report state that the cost 
of operation and maintenance, respectively, of the two routes in 
Nicaragua and Panama is in Nicaragua $1,300,000 more than at 
Panama. Is that your judgment? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Hanna. That is the interest on $65,000,000, Government 
rate ? 


The Chairman. What was Mr. Childs’s estimate of the cost of his 


canal ? 


Mr. Morison. I should have to look that up. 

The Chairman. It was about $25,000,000, was it not ? 

Mr. Morison. I think it is all in our report. I would rather refer 
to that report than to give it without reference. 

Senator Hanna. How do you regard the dangers of navigation, 
which would have to be covered b}^ insurance, between the two routes? 

Mr. Morison. I think they would be about in proportion to the 
length of the route; that is the additional premium to be paid over 
what it would be if it was the same distance of deep-sea sailing. 

Senator Hanna. Mr. Haupt made a calculation, which was interest¬ 
ing to say the least, to overcome that difference in the cost of opera¬ 
tion, which would reduce it to $900,000 as compared with your 
$1,300,000, the time to be saved from ports of New York, or from a 
port on the Atlantic, to ports on the Pacific, to San Francisco, of one 
day, and from ports on the Gulf of Mexico to San Francisco, two 
da}^s. He stated that the saving of time and expense to a vessel 
would overcome the difference in the cost of the operation of the 
canal. 1 want to bring out the fact that he placed the cost of opera¬ 
tion between the two routes $400,000 less than the Commission did. 
Do you know whether that part of the work was assigned to him ? 

Mr. Morison. That part of the work was assigned to a special com¬ 
mittee, consisting of General Ernst, Mr. Noble, and myself, and the 
work was done very largely by General Ernst. 

The Chairman. You mean the estimates of maintenance? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. I would be very glad if you can give the items of 
maintenance on both routes. 

Mr. Morison. Well, it is a long matter, and I have not the figures 
of it here. I could furnish you with a copy of the draft. 

The Chairman. I would be glad to get it. 

Mr. Morison. I understand that General Ernst is to appear before 
this committee, and as he was the man who did the greater part of that 
work, I should a little rather have it furnished by him than by myself. 

The Chairman. Well, I will get it from him. I want to get it in 
the record if I can. I have never seen it. 


36 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORTSON. 


Mr. Morison. Each member of the committee lias it and I think 
very likely each member of the Commission. The greatest advantage 
of the Nicaragua Canal—I think I may say that it is the only advantage 
it has—is that its west end is 500 miles nearer San Francisco than the 
west end of the Panama Canal. That means that a slow steamer, the 
class that usually carry freight, running night and day through the 
Nicaragua Canal, would get to San Francisco in one day less time 
than she would if she went through the Panama Canal. If, however, 
she did not run day and night, but tied up during the night, running 
only during the day, she would get to San Francisco in the same time 
by both routes. 

The Chairman. You spoke of the Suez Canal. Is not that navi¬ 
gated at night ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. How do they manage to do it ? 

Mr. Morison. You can navigate canals at night. If you will let me 
finish my answer I will take up this subject afterwards. If, however, 
you consider very high-powered ships, a fast modern ship would get 
to San Fiancisco just as quick through one route as through the other; 
and she would get there a day quicker by way of Panama than she 
would if she laid up nights on the Nicaragua route. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, the Suez Canal is carefully lighted, and no ships 
are allowed to run at night unless they have a particular system of 
electric lights. 


The Chairman. The ship itself? 

Mr. Morison. The ship itself. Furthermore, you probably can not 
find a more perfect climate in which to run at night. That is the climate 
of the Suez; it is the climate of Egypt, which we all know is practi¬ 
cally a rainless climate and the nights are very clear; further, it is a 
canal with soft banks, and if a steamer strikes the banks it does not 
hurt her. 

Senator IIanna. With reference to the general saving of time in the 
commerce of the world, ships coming from Europe, any port of 
Europe, the Mediterranean, or anywhere else, and going to Australia, 
or the west coast of South America, would there be ain T advantage in 
the Nicaragua over the Panama route? 

Mr. Morison. Some time ago I tried to study that matter up my¬ 
self, and if.you will permit me I will read you this paper which I have 
prepared. 


Senator Hanna. We should be very glad to have } T ou do it. 

Mr. Morison. I want it distinctly understood that all of these esti¬ 
mates are based upon the assumption that the ship while going through 
the Nicaragua Canal runs day and night. The paper is as follows: 

“ New York may be taken as the representative of all North Ameri¬ 
can Atlantic ports; the course from all these ports to either Colon or 
Grey town would be around Cape Maysi, the eastern end of Cuba. 

“New Orleans maybe taken as the representative Gulf port, the 
course from there to either Panama or Grey town being through the 
Yucatan Channel. 

“Plymouth, England, may be taken as the representative of all 
European ports, and it may be assumed that the course from any Euro¬ 
pean port to either Colon or Greytown would be by way of St. Thomas, 
stopping there for coal. If another coaling station is used it will make 
no very material difference. 


STATEMENT OF OEO. S. MORISON. 


37 


“The distances from these several ports to Colon and Gre} r town are 
as follows: 


Table I. 


Port, 

To— 

Differ¬ 
ence in 
favor of 
Colon. 

Colon. 

Grey- 

town. 

New York. 

Miles. 

1,965 

1,400 

4,495 

Miles. 

2,025 
1,260 

4, 665 

* 

Miles. 

60 

—140 

170 

New Orleans. 

Plymouth. 

Average. 



30 





“The distance from New York is calculated from Sandy Hook. 
Gibraltar, which would represent all Mediterranean ports, is 222 miles 
nearer St. Thomas than Plymouth is, but the difference will be constant. 

“The time required to pass through the Panama Canal is approxi¬ 
mately equal to the time required for a steamer to travel 150 miles at 
sea. The time required to pass through the Nicaragua Canal is approx¬ 
imately equal to the time required for a steamer to travel TOO miles at 
sea. These distances correspond to a speed of 12 miles an hour at 
sea; they represent an. ad vantage of 250 miles in favor of Panama; 
with a speed of 10 miles per hour this difference would be reduced to 
208 miles; with a speed of 15 miles per hour it would be increased to 
312 miles; to avoid unnecessary complications they are considered a 
fair mean for all conditions. If we add these distances to those given 
above we have the practical distances from the three representative 
ports to the Pacific termini of the two canals, as follows: 


Table II. 


Port. 

To— 

Differ¬ 
ence in 
favor of 
Panama, 

Panama 

Brito. 


Miles. 

2,115 

1,550 

4,645 

Miles. 

2,424 
1,660 
5,065 

Miles. 

310 

110 

420 

Kpw fYr1pfl.ns! _ .. 





280 

* 




“ In general it may be said that it will take about a day longer in the 
average of all voyages for steamers to reach the western terminus of 
the Nicaragua Canal than to reach the western terminus of the Panama 


Canal. 

“On the Pacific there will be three classes of traffic; that going to 
San Francisco and all Northern Pacific ports, including those of Asia; 
that going to South American ports; that going to South Pacific ports, 
as in New Zealand and Australia. 

“ Yokohama may be considered the first port that will be made by 
steamers going to either Japan or China. In order to make a coaling 
point voyages would be made either by way of San Francisco or of 
Honolulu. Of these routes that by way of San Francisco is 1,500 
miles the shorter. For these reasons the port of San Francisco may 
be considered as representing not only California traffic, but all traffic 
for China and Japan. 








































38 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


“ Manila, which may be taken as the representative port of the Philip¬ 
pines, is 200 miles farther from Brito by way of Honolulu than by 
way of San Francisco, and 186 miles farther from Panama by way of 
Honolulu than by way of San Francisco. The relative difference is 
really very slight, and the two routes may be considered as practically 
of equal length. 

‘"San Francisco is 3,179 miles from Panama and 2,636 miles from 
Brito, a difference of 513 miles in favor of Brito. Combining these 
distances with those given in Table II, we have the through distances 
to San Francisco by way of the two canals, as follows: 

Table III. 



Via 

Panama. 

Via 

Nicaragua. 

Difference 
in favor off 
Nicaragua.. 

San Francisco from— 

New York. 

Miles. 

5,294 
4,729 
7,824 

Miles. 
5,061 
4,296 
7,701 

Miles. 

233 

433 

123 

New Orleans. 

Plymouth. 

Average. 



263 





“On San Francisco business it may be said that the Nicaragua route 
has an advantage in time from sixteen to twenty-four hours. 

“Another possible route across the Pacific is by way of Honolulu. 
Although this is a longer route to all trans-Pacific points, special local 
considerations will lead some vessels to take it. Honolulu is 1,681 
miles from Panama and 1,150 miles from Brito, a difference of 531 
miles in favor of Brito. Combining these distances with those given 
in Table II, we have the through distances to Honolulu by way of the 
two canals, as follows: 

Table IV. 



Via 

Panama. 

Via 

Nica¬ 

ragua. 

Differ¬ 
ence in 
favor of 
Nica¬ 
ragua. 

Honolulu from— 

New York. 

Miles. 

6,796 
6,231 
9,326 

Miles. 

6,575 
5.810 
9,215 

Miles. 

221 

421 

111 

New Orleans. 

Plymouth. 

Average. 



251 





“There is practically no difference in the relative distances by the 
two canals whether the route to Asia be taken by San Francisco or by 
Honolulu. The fact that Honolulu lies almost exactly half way between 
the Isthmus and Manila indicates that this may be a favorite route to 
the Philippines in spite of its slightly greater length. 

“The greater part of the traffic with the west coast of South 
America will pass around Cape Blanco, which may be taken as a 
governing point for all this traffic. Cape Blanco is 813 miles from 
Panama and 975 miles from Nicaragua, a difference of 162 miles in favor 
of Panama. Combining these distances with those given in Table II, 


































STATEMENT OF GEO S. MORISON. 


39 


we have the through distances to Cape Blanco by way of the two canals 
as follows: 

Table V. 



Via 

Panama. 

Via 

Nica¬ 

ragua. 

Differ¬ 
ence 
in favor 
of 

Panama. 

Cape Blanco from— 

New York. 

Miles. 
2,928 
2,363 
5,462 

Miles. 
3,400 
2,635 
6,040 

Miles. 

472 

272 

582 

New Orleans. 

Plymouth. 

Average. 



442 





u On west coast South American business, it may be said that the 
Panama route has an advantage in time of from twenty-eight to forty- 
two hours. 

4 4 The only other distances which it is expedient to consider are 
those to New Zealand and Australia. Wellington is selected as the 
New Zealand port and Sidney as the Australian port, this being the 
most westerly important port of that island. Wellington is 6,485 
miles from Panama and 6,280 miles from Brito, a difference of 205 
miles in favor of Brito. Combining these distances with those given 
in Table II, we have the through distances to Wellington by way of 
the two canals as follows: 


Table VI. 


• 

Via 

Panama. 

Via 

Nicara¬ 

gua. 

Differ¬ 
ence in 
favor of 
Panama. 

Wellington from— 

New York. 

Miles. 

8, 600 
8,035 
11,130 

Miles. 

8,705 
7,940 
11,345 

Miles. 

105 

-95 

215 

New Orleans. 

Plvmouth. 

Average. 



75 




44 Sidney is 7,669 miles from Panama and 7,110 miles from Brito, a 
difference of 259 miles in favor of Brito. Combining these distances 
with those given in Table II, we have the through distances to Sidney 
by way of the two canals as follows: 

' Table VII. 


Via 

Panama. 

Via 

Nicara¬ 

gua. 

Differ¬ 
ence in 
favor of 
Panama. 

Sidney from— 

New York. 

Miles. 
9,784 
9,219 
12, 314 

Miles. 

9,835 
9,070 
12,475 

Miles. 

49 

—149 

161 

New Orleans . 

Plymouth . . . . 

A VP.Tfl.ffft _ . .. 



20 





44 New Zealand is the only eastern place which can be reached more 
directly from Plymouth by way of the American Isthmus than by way 



























































40 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


of the Suez Canal, but the distances to both Sidney and Wellington by 
the two routes (Panama and Suez) do not differ enough to determine 
the direction of the traffic. For Australian and New Zealand com¬ 
merce the Panama and Nicaragua routes are equally convenient. 

44 Summarizing the preceding tables we ffnd that San Francisco rep¬ 
resents practically everything on the Pacific Ocean north of the equator 
and that to reach San Francisco the Nicaragua route has an advantage 
over the Panama route equivalent to 203 miles. For business with 
west coast of South America the Panama route has an average advan¬ 
tage of 442 miles. For business to points beyond the Pacific and 
south of the equator, which virtually consists of New Zealand and 
Australia, the Panama route has a slight advantage, but the advantage 
is so small and other routes are so feasible that this has no practical 
influence on the relative merits of the two schemes.” 

I then went beyond this in another study and tried to assign propor¬ 
tions to the different classes of traffic. This was an assumption of my 
own, arid it can not be very accurate, because, as I have sometimes said, 
I know of nothing in which statistics are of as little value as are statis¬ 
tics about transportation before that transportation has come into exist¬ 
ence. I will proceed: 

44 The previous studies have been based on a few terminal points 
without giving special consideration to the relative amount of traffic 
by the several routes; a further study should be made on this basis. 
The amount of traffic between the Atlantic and the Pacific ports of the 
United States will be regulated by various other conditions, especially 
interior transportation and the action of the transcontinental railroads. 
It seems approximately right to assume, however, that the trade of 
the United States Atlantic ports will be double that of the Gulf ports; 
that the trade of either Atlantic or Gulf ports with the regions repre¬ 
sented b} T San Francisco, which includes Asia, will be double that of 
either of these with the west coast of South America; that the trade 
of European ports and of the Gulf ports with San Francisco and other 
west coast United States ports will be equal; that the trade of Euro¬ 
pean ports with west coast ports of North and South America will be 
equal. 

44 Combining these figures and making the trade between Gulf ports 
and South American west coast ports the unit, we have the following 
relative amounts of the several lines of transportation. As before 
stated, New York represents the Atlantic United States ports, New 
Orleans the Gulf ports, Plymouth the European ports, San Francisco 
the North Pacific ports, and Cape Blanco the South American Pacific 
ports: 

New York to San Francisco. 4 

New York to Cape Blanco. 2 

New Orleans to San Francisco. 2 

New Orleans to Cape Blanco.1 

Plymouth to San Francisco. 2 

Plymouth to Cape Blanco. 2 

Total. 13 

44 Of these all but the last represent traffic with the United States. 

44 To compare the relative distances by the two canals each of these 
numbers must be multiplied by the difference in favor of Panama or 










STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORTSON. 


41 


Nicaragua, as given in Tables III and IV. If this is done we have the 
following results: 

Table VIII. 


In favor 
of Pan¬ 
ama. 


In favor 
of Nica¬ 
ragua. 


f 


New York to San Francisco, 4 by 233 .. 
New York to Cape Blanco, 2 by 472.... 
New Orleans to San Francisco,' 2 by 433 
New Orleans to Cape Blanco, 1 by 272 . 
Plymouth to San Francisco, 2 by 133... 
Plymouth to Cape Blanco, 2 by 582 _ 


944 


272 

i,'iti4" 


2,370 


932 

86(3 


246 


2,040 


“This gives an average difference of 27 miles in favor of Panama. 

“If we eliminate the last item as a traffic in which the United States 
has no interest, the average difference becomes 75 miles in favor of 
Nicaragua. 

“These differences are so small as practically to put the two canals 
on an equality. 

“All the above is on the assumption of the passage of each canal 
without delay for darkness or other interruptions. 

“N. B.—These pages of tables are inserted by mistake and do not 
form part of those read. They are now removed, which explains 
the gap in page numbering.” 

The only conclusion that I can draw from all this is that there is 
practically no advantage in one route over the other. 

The Chairman. If I get the statement correctly that you made, 
it is 500 miles on the Pacific side between Panama exit of the canal and 
Nicaragua. 

Mr. Morison. Five hundred and forty-three. 

The Chairman. Then, if we want to shorten our coastwise line of 
trade, we would gain that distance by going through Nicaragua? 

Mr. Morison. You woidd gain that on the Pacific Ocean, but you 
would lose it by the time of going through the canal. 

The Chairman. Now, all of the estimates that you made, it occurs to 
me, are made for steamers? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. You make no allowance for sailing ships at all? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir. 

The Chairman. Why do you drop them off ? 

Mr. Morison. Because I do not believe that any sailing vessels are 
going to take either of those routes. There are practically no sailing 
vessels going through the Suez canal. Sailing vessels have courses of 
their own, which, as a rule, go a long way from land. There are cer¬ 
tain routes where they do very well, and others where they do not, but 
where you can take a short course with a steamer I do not know of 
any route where a sailing vessel could do it at all. 

The Chairman. Then you think the sailing ships of the United 
States, both on the Pacific and the Atlantic, are doomed to pass through 
the Straits of Magellan ? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir; no sailing ship ever goes through the Straits 























42 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


of Magellan. They go around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hopey 
depending on where the} 7 are going. 

The Chairman. You think that is the future of the American sailing 
ship ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes. 

Senator Hanna. You do not mean to confine that to American sailing 
ships? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir. When a ship sails from San Francisco she 
sails southwest ‘and goes away out into the Pacific Ocean, and then 
changes her course and proceeds toward Cape Horn. 

The Chairman. But American sailing ships do sail in great numbers 
around the Cape of Good Hope ? 

. Mr. Morison. Yes. 

The Chairman. Did you ascertain that that class of trade was^ 
increasing very much? 

Mr. Morison. No; I did not. Professor Johnson made the study 
about that. 

Senator Hanna. From an economical standpoint. I know something 
of sailing ships and the commerce of the world. There has been an 
increase in sailing vessels, in the construction of them, a very few, 
but carrying very large cargoes. It would be a question of expense, 
of course, of economy, as to whether they could better afford to carry 
their cargos around with the extra time than they could afford to pay 
the tolls and the towing bills through the canal. If one was cheaper 
than the other they would go the cheaper way, provided the dangers 
and risks were not increased. 

The Chairman. You have made no provisions in either canal for the- 
advantage of sailing ships; you do not estimate that at all. 

Mr. Morison. No; I do not. 

Senator Hanna. Well, the history of the transportation through the* 
Suez Canal guided you to that conclusion because it is not used by 
sailing ships. That having the same relation with reference to the 
Cape of Good Hope that our canal would have with reference to Cape 
Horn, that would be a fair comparison ? 

Mr. Morison. At present the grain from the Pacific coast is carried 
to Europe in sailing vessels. It is a four to five months’ voyage; it is 
practically the only way that it can be taken to Europe without rehand¬ 
ling and various objectionable transfers. 

Senator Hanna. Without a canal. 

Mr. Morison. I mean under present conditions. Then the present 
grain crop on the Pacific coast is handled in an entirely different way 
from what the Eastern grain crop is handled. That is due to the 
climate. The whole crop is sacked, and it is kept sacked in the fields 
until they are ready to ship it. With the canal done, a steamer would 
make the voyage from San Francisco to Liverpool, a 12-knot ship, in 
about twenty-five days. 

Senator Hanna. Well, I entirely agree with that proposition in 
your original statement, that on the completion of the canal as a 
matter of cheap transportation and time considered, that steamers of 
10 and 12 knots, of large burthen, would then drive the sailing vessels 
out of that grain trade, and I am strengthened in that opinion by the 
fact that on the Great Lakes tnere has not been a sailing ship built for 
years, and that all the coarse freights on the Great Lakes are now car¬ 
ried by steam vessels. Since we have got the 21-foot channel up there 




STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


43 


the size of the vessels on the lakes have increased, in my experience, 
from 600 tons to 6,000 tons, which minimizes the expense of the cost 
of carrying* them, so that a sailing vessel can not compete. 

The Chairman. I will ask you now, Mr. Hanna, as you are making 
a statement about it, where do the steamers on the Great Lakes sup¬ 
ply themselves with coal? 

Senator Hanna. Everywhere where they load or unload their cargo-.. 

The Chairman. But they do not have to transport coal to coaling 
stations in order to provide themselves on the trip? 

Senator Hanna. Oh, yes; they do. There are coaling stations all 
along the Sault River. There are live there. There are coaling sta¬ 
tions at the head of Lake Superior and at Milwaukee and at Chicago*. 

Senator Morgan. Have the sailing ships disappeared from the lakes ? 

Senator Hanna. Yes; except those that were built years ago. There 
are none built now and there have been none building for years. A 
great many of them are turned into tow barges. All the sailing ships 
on the lakes are engaged in the lumber trade, and as they are lost or 
go out of use because of age they are neither rebuilt nor are new ones 
built in their place. 

The Chairman. Why don't the steamers take the lumber? 

Senator Hanna. They do; but sailing ships in existence, 1 say, that 
have been in the ore and other trades do not compete now at all. 

The Chairman. Now, Mr. Morison, can you tell how the grain of 
the Pacific slope is now transported to the European markets, whether 
by sailing ships or steamers or railroad? 

Mr. Morison. Almost entirely by sailing vessels. Ten years ago I 
was in the habit of being on the Pacific coast a good deal. I have not 
been very much lately, but I think it has not changed. 

The Chairman. They did not give up the sailing vessels for trans¬ 
portation of grain because it goes slow? 

Mr. Morison. It is an extremely long voyage, which would be a very 
difficult voyage for a steamer to make. 

The Chairman. But they do not give it up and take the steamer in 
order to increase the speed of the voyage? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir. 

The Chairman. The}* still adhere to the sailing ships. 

Mr. Morison. But that is an entirely different case. 

The Chair an. That may be a different case, but it is the truth y 
isn’t it? * 

Mr. Morison. It is the truth; it is one of the few cases where 
sailing vessels have the advantage. There are certain routes in which 
sailing vessels can make almost as good time as steamers, where you get 
wind. If sailing vessels could go from Liverpool to New It ork as 
quickly as they can go from New York- to Liverpool, I think they 
would still be carrying a large portion of the freight between New 
York and European ports. 

The Chairman. They are carrying a large proportion of it now, are 
they not? 

Mr. Morison. No; but if sailing vessels could make the time west¬ 
ward that they can make eastward they would be still in the business*. 

The Chairman. That is owing to the winds? 

Mr. Morison. The winds and currents. 

The Chairman. If you have any experience in it, the winds of the 
ocean are very permanent in their character, are they not? 


44 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


Mr. Morison. They are in certain latitudes, and in others they" 
are not. 

The Chairman. Take the trades. 

Mr. Morison. The trades can be relied on in certain latitudes, and 
that is one reason why sailing* vessels have continued to this day in the 
commerce that goes around the Cape of Good Hope or around Cape 
Horn, in both of which routes they have to cross the Tropics twice. 

The Chairman. Don't you think that availing* themselves of that 
power they will still continue to spread their sails on the ocean? 

Mr. Morison. If they are going* to cross the Tropics in that way. 

The Chairman. You do not expect that sailing* ships will stop 
becau.se the steamship has got the run? 

Mr. Morison. No, not entirely; but as soon as they cease to have to 
cross the tropics twice, which would happen when the canal is built, as 
soon as the} r cease to do that, the advantage of the sailing vessel would 
disappear and the steamer would come right in. 

The Chairman. Have } T ou ever computed what proportion of the 
coastwise trade of the United States on the Pacific and the Atlantic 
coasts is done by sailing ships? 

Mr. Morison. No, sir. There is a special class of trade along the 
Atlantic coast done by sailing vessels largely. I do not think there is 
as much on the Pacific, but up to the present time the conditions have 
been very artificial conditions on the Pacific coast. Under our navi¬ 
gation laws it has been a pretty hard thing to get steam vessels for 
the coasting trade. 

The Chairman. But all of these propositions to spend money for 
digging a canal at Panama or Nicaraugua, according* to the plan of the 
Isthmian Canal Commission, are made and established without reference 
to the use of sailing ships? 

Mr. Morison. They have not been considered as of sufficient impor¬ 
tance to have much weight in the conclusion. 

The Chairman. Very good. That is all I want to know. 

Senator Hanna. You sav they have not been considered ? 

Mr. Morison. I say they have not been considered as having much 
weight. We considered them to the extent of deciding* what weight 
was to be given to them. 

Senator Hanna. Of course it is a very small percentage. I do not 
know of anything more that I care to ask. 

Mr. Morison. There is one thing that I would like to say before we 
go. I see that a previous witness has introduced a paper that I pre¬ 
pared on the subject of the Boliio dam. That paper was prepared 
with a view of bringing* the matter before a collection of engineers for 
discussion, to see what criticisms could be made on what I considered 


a satisfactory solution of the dam problem at a very much less expense 
than the Commission’s plan. It will be discussed at a meeting in New 
York on the 5th of next month. When I stated there that I considered 
the Commission’s plan—I have not the paper here or I would give you 
the exact words—when I stated there that 1 considered that the Isth¬ 
mian Canal Commission’s plan involved very great difficulties, I cer¬ 
tainly did not mean that it could not lie done. My own judgment is 
that, if I was going to use a core wall, I should not put the core wall 
in by the use of the pneumatic process, but I should select a place 
where I should have to go deeper than 128 feet, and would use the 
method that has been used in sinking* very deep foundations in the 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


45 


rivers oi India that of dredging through wells. The paper was pre¬ 
pared for the purpose I have mentioned. 

Senator Hanna. Of creating a discussion? 

Mr. Morison . It was prepared to bring forward the plan and have 
it discussed, and to get the opinions of engineers. 

Senator Hanna. Is Mr. Menocal a member of the engineers’ asso¬ 
ciation? 

Mr. Morison. les. I noticed that Mr. Menocal criticises a portion 
of the estimate on the ground that the pneumatic work is put in at 
$21.50 instead of $29.50 a yard. The reason it is put at $21.50 a yard 
is that the greatest depth is 60 feet instead of 128 feet, and I think 
that certainly justifies the reduction of $8 a yard. 

The Chairman. You have examined the blue prints with reference 
to the Bohio dam? 

Mr. Morison. Tes, sir; and I passed on that point as a member of 
the Panama Commission. 

The Chairman. That involves something moi*e than merely putting 
down a caisson. 

Mr. Morison. The caissons simply form the foundation of the core 
wall; that is all. 


The Chairman. But the bottom of the river there, or the dam, is 
not uniform. 

Mr. Morison. Certainly not. 

The Chairman. How do you supply the difference between one 
edge of the caisson and the other which is up a few feet higher ? 

Mr. Morison. That is a perfectly simple thing. You till it up with 
concrete or something of that order. I have done that again and 
again in bridge foundations. 

The Chairman. So that one edge of the caisson would rest on the 
rock and the other on the concrete. 

Mr. Morison. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. That is } T our plan ? 

Mr. Morison. That is their plan. 

The Chairman. Do you approve of that plan ? 

Mr. Morison. I have put in a lot of bridge piers that way, and it is 
perfectly legitimate. 

The Chairman. I understood you to say a moment ago that if you 
had the building of the dam } t ou would dredge it. 

Mr. Morison. If I had to build that kind of a dam with the core 
wall I should-consider very carefully what was the best way to do it. 
I should remember my old teacher’s instructions that if I had five 
minutes in which to solve a problem I had better spend three in decid¬ 
ing the best way; and my own present feeling is that the chances are 
I should find some way r to do that without using the pneumatic process. 

The Chairman. You do not approve in advance of that plan as 
being a sufficient plan ? 

Mr. Morison. I think it is a plan for the purpose for which it is 
made; it is a plan that can be carried out in some w r ay, and it is a 
plan which, so far as estimates are concerned, may certainly be con¬ 
sidered to lie at least as expensive as that on which the dam will be 


built. 

Senator Kittredge. What did you say about ships using the Nica¬ 


ragua Canal after dark ? 

Mr. Morison. It can be done; it is a very bad climate, but it can 


46 


STATEMENT OF GEO. S. MORISON. 


be done. My own belief is that large ships will not run at night, but 
that small ones will. 

Senator Ivittredge. How can you light it? 

Mr. Morison. You can light the banks, and every ship should be 
supplied with a special set of electric lights, and special instructions for 
the use of them. 

Senator Ivittredge. Would it not be necessary to have lights along 
the canal banks in addition to the lights that the ships would carry ? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; there ought to lie some, but that kind of buo} T 
lights do not cost very much. 

Senator Hanna. Gas buoys? 

Mr. Morison. Yes; they are not very expensive. 

Senator Hanna. No; but they are very good; they are a great 
invention. 

The committee then (at 4 o’clock p. m.) took a recess until Thurs¬ 
day, February 13, at 10.30 o’clock a. m. 


LBJa’05 






















